GIVEAWAY: blue and pink heart beanie

Hello! I finished the hat I was knitting for myself but I also hit a rather major snag ... it's way too tiny for me! >___<

Oh dear! I'm really not sure what I did wrong here; I was very diligent about following the pattern correctly and I even measured my needles to make sure I had the right size. I think this is an advantage of crochet - you can pause halfway through to wrap it around the appropriate body part to ensure sizing is right! But, what's done is done and now I have a lovely knitted hat that I cannot wear. 

However, I'm still quite pleased with how it turned out. My tensioning was good, I really like how the colourwork looks, and for my first real shot at colourwork I think I even did an ok job on the floats!

I really love the combination of the turquoise and variegated pink yarns and I used a lovely soft acrylic yarn which was a pleasure to knit with. The variegated hearts turned out so well - I simply adore them! I really love how each one is a little different ^___^

Another fun element of the pattern is this super long ribbed section which you can fold up or leave out if you like a really slouchy beanie! It's four inches of ribbing in total, which seems like tons when you're knitting it! But I do really like the look.

All the best hats have pom-poms on them (this is a scientific fact, I'm sure) but I couldn't decide what colour my pom-pom should be - so I went for all of them! ^____^ I think it really helps tie the whole beanie together.

Now, since I can't wear this hat, I'm going to give it away to someone who can! It should fit someone with a head circumference of about 41cm (or 16 inches) and it is about 15cm (6 inches) tall which is quite tiny so if you, or someone you know, are expecting a baby soon, comment below with your favourite baby name by the 30th of June to win! Please make sure your comment includes some way for me to know your email address so I can get it contact with you ^___^

Oh, and if anyone has any suggestions on how to remake this hat so it actually fits me, I wouldn't mind hearing from you either! ~____^

- Lisa xx

Get Geometric C/KAL!

Hello! Exciting news, folks!! Tanya and I are doing another KAL! Yay! (cue raucous applause)  ~___^ This KAL (technically a C/KAL, as per usual ^___^) is all about chevrons and triangles - it's time to Get Geometric! Tanya and I have each created a free pattern for you to make; one for crocheters and one for knitters ^___^

I've made a pattern for these awesome crochet chevron mitts; they're super comfy and deceptively easy! The best thing about this pattern is that the colour work is done in alternating rows and you don't tie off between rows; this means that when you're finished you only have four ends to weave in! I don't know about you, but I *hate* weaving in ends so I'm super stoked to have a simple way to create this chevron pattern that doesn't end with me never ever actually finishing the project ~___^

 

You can download the free pattern for these mitts from Ravelry here and join our KAL group here. 

Tanya has made a pattern for an incredible double knitted cowl with a pattern of stacked triangles. It looks AWESOME and I can't wait to start knitting my own version! The KAL will run from the 19th of January til the 19th of February and we've already started chatting away on the group boards ^___^

Tanya has also gathered this awesome prize pack that's up for grabs for anyone who completes her cowl pattern. It includes three gorgeous skeins of wool, a notebook, compact mirror, washi tape, triangle earrings, and a cushion cover! If you're not already riding the geometric bandwagon, this will surely get you a seat ~___^

 

Those who whip up a pair of mitts will go into the draw to win this totally wicked prize pack! It includes three balls of wool (enough to make up the mitts in the same hot pink and deep grey colour scheme that I've favoured ~___^), a wooden bead necklace kit, a notebook, geometric earrings and ...

 

 

... this awesome watch! I suspect that anyone toting around all of these prizes would automatically become the coolest person in any room that they enter ~___^

I really hope you'll join Tanya and I for this KAL! You've got just under a week to download the patterns for the mitts or the cowl, gather your wool, introduce yourself ... and then we can get knitting/hooking! ^___^ We'll be sharing progress pictures on Instagram using the hashtag #getgeometric and I can't wait to see everyone's WIPs and FOs!

- Lisa xx

Knitted pineapple tea cosy

It's finally finished! Yay! I handed in an assignment on Friday, another today, *and* I've finished the knitted pineapple tea cosy. Gosh, I'm pretty pleased with myself right now! ~___^

If you'd like to make your own, you can find the link to the pattern on this page or if you manage to find a copy of Nick-Nacks C41, then it's in there too! ^____^

 

I am not a very skilled knitter, so if you can knit and purl, then you too can make this cosy! ^___^ The body of the cosy is made from two rectangles which are then sewn together on the corners and the bobble pattern is made by repeating four rows until the rectangles are high enough. I didn't block my cosy, but it nonetheless turned out fairly similar to the picture included with the original pattern.

Well, similar aside from the colours and obviously my teapot isn't nearly as retro! ~___^

 

My leaves also are not as floppy as the original image would suggest they would be, but I think it looks more pineapple-eque to have them standing up, wouldn't you agree? ^___^ The leaves are pretty easy to do, but I don't really like how they are all connected together. If I would do it again, I would do each of them separately, the same way I did the leaves for the crochet version. I think this would make them a lot easier to sew to the cosy!

The base of my tea cosy is a little wavy, which I think means I need to learn how to do a new cast on (I often have this problem!). I think it could be fixed by threading some elastic through the cosy, but since this cosy is destined for a friend's teapot, I don't want to customise it too much for my teapot.

 

I'm very pleased to have finally cast off on this project, and after I hand in my final, final assignment on Monday (!) I will be on break! I'm so very excited, I'm working on (well, planning on working on ...) a cosplay for Supanova, and then I've got many, many embroideries to do! ^___^ 

Wish me luck!

- Lisa xx

The Giant Pineapple Cosy KAL is over!

Well, that's it! We've been KALing for a month and now it's time to announce the winners! ^____^

Special pineapple judging sunglasses on and ...
 

 

Congratulations to ThistleKnitter! ThistleKnitter won with her gorgeous knitted cosy - isn't it sweet? It looks like it came right out of the 70s! ^___^

But we're not leaving it at that, oh no! We also have five lovely runners up! ^___^
 

Knitting at the speed of light: FrogWitness

 

Best Sideshow Bob imitation: JennineBirrell (for the most funky cosy hairstyle I’ve ever seen!) 

Honey, I Shrunk the KAL: DWScissors

 

 
Most tropical photoshoot: RenKage

 

 
Best use of the Geminio charm: Elvispeth (for making two! ^___^)

Huzzah! Congratulations to all our winners, thank you to everyone who participated, and a big big thankyou to Tanya for helping to organise everything! ^____^

I didn't end up finishing my second cosy, but I did learn a lot while I tried! I now know how to do two more knitting stitches and I think I'm actually getting a bit faster! Once I finish off the leaves I will post it here, but I think for the next KAL the main thing I need to remember is not to organise more deadlines during finals! ~___^ 

Now, I think it's time for a cup of tea, and then it's back to the grindstone! Only eleven more days and I'll be free (frrreeeee!) so expect much more crafty posts heading your way after that! ^___^

- Lisa xx

The Giant Pineapple Cosy KAL begins!

Hello! Well, the Giant Pineapple Cosy KAL is in it's second day! Or first, possibly, if you're in a different country than Australia. Timezones are weird! ~___^ Members in the Ravelry group are absolutely racing through the patterns, so if you haven't signed up yet then there is still plenty of time to join and start knitting or crocheting. Perhaps you could even do both!

I only shared one photo of the crochet cosy in my original post, so I thought I'd show you some more here! ^___^

The knitted pattern says to sew up all corners of the pattern, but I couldn't get the cosy over and under my teapot's handle with it seamed there so I added a button closure instead. I used a big white button which seems to suit it well, but I'm keeping a look out for the perfect pineapple button to replace it ^___^ One can never have too much pineappleyness, right? 

I was a bit worried about the leaves falling over, but they actually have held their shape really well! They are just sewn to the last two rows of the cosy body, and they stand up without any type of support. Except the support they get from each other! ~___^

As you can see, even when pouring, the leaves stay upright! I think that tensioning them tightly has really helped here but if your leaves did end up too floppy, a small length of floral wire inside each one would fix them up nicely.

I'm now working on making up the knitted version, which I think is going to take me much longer than some of the super knitters in the Ravelry group! ^___^ I have finished one side, but I must mention that I totally cheated! Tanya and I were both meant to test out the knitting pattern, but since I am oh so slow, I had only finished about half of one side by the time Tanya had totally finished whipping up her awesome cosy!

 

So I put it away, and only restarted it yesterday when the KAL actually began. I did about six more rows of bobbles and then finished it off. The side I have done is looking a bit wonky, which I hope will improve after blocking. But hopefully now since I've got some practice I'll be able to do the next side a bit quicker and neater! But I do have until June 2nd to get it done, so I'm not going to stress about it ^___^

The bobbles are much easier to see in real life, and I suspect that blocking will also make it much easier to see them. A looser tension would possibly also help, but I'm not going to hold my breath for that! ~___^

I'm working on a couple of sewing projects to show you next week, but my sewing machine is being very uncooporative at the moment. I'm hoping I can work past these technical difficulties, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see! 

Until next time!

- Lisa xx

Foxy KAL - Complete!

I finished my fox hat - huzzah! Today is the last day of Tanya and my Foxy KAL (yes, I am great with deadlines, thanks for asking! ~__^) and it's been a lot of fun!

I knitted up Tanya's foxy hat pattern twice actually; the first time it was baby sized and was a gift for my new niece, but the photos I took of it were pretty poor and I wanted one for myself, so I grabbed my needles and started another! ^__^

I have a tendency to tension tightly, so I used 6mm needles instead of the 5.5mm ones recommended by Tanya. I've since learnt that I apparently knit in the back loop, which explains why my stitches have more of a basket weave look as well as why everything turns out a tiny bit too small! The more you know, hey? For my next project I will have to try knitting through the front loop, and see what difference it makes ^__^

 

Since my stitches weren't as even as they should have been, the surface knitting for the facial features didn't work as well, which I discovered when I tried to do the nose. I persevered, but I ended up having to go over my stitches a few times to cover up the white yarn underneath and it doesn't look as neat. So I just embroidered the eyes on with two strands of wool, using back stitch (which you all know is my fave! ~__^)

I used stash wool for this project, so I'm not sure of the brands, but the white yarn is 100% wool, and the grey yarn is 100% acrylic. The grey was also slightly thinner than the white yarn which meant that the top of the hat is thinner than the base. This isn't really a problem though, because heads are also kinda shaped that way ~__^

 

I used two strands of each yarn, because they weren't as thick as the yarn Tanya recommended in her pattern, and I didn't want to go and buy more since I'm still trying to stash bust and also because I have *so much yarn*! Really I just justify buying any ever again ever. I do though. But it's not just! ~__^

 

I also added a crochet scallop border because my cast on was pretty dreadful looking, and also because I like to wear my hats on the crown of my hat, which means the brims often have to be a bit lower then others may prefer.

 

I used the same grey yarn that I used for the top of the hat, but I only used one strand and a 4mm hook. I did the scallops by doing five trebles into one of the cast on spaces; then I joined the next three cast on spaces with one stitch, like you would if you were reducing with the double crochet stitch. I'm not sure what that is actually called, probably something like 'double three together'. Let's say it's that, for now. If you know the correct terminology, let me know in the comments! Anyway, I just scalloped and 'double three together'-ed all around the brim and then tied off. I think it really adds a nice touch! ^__^ 

 We had a really great turnout for this KAL - we ended up with 82 group members, which I thought was incredible! ^__^ If you want to check out all the awesome FOs this group made, head over to Ravelry and take a sticky beak ^__^

 

Both the knit and crochet patterns will be available to everyone on Ravelry in the next couple of days, and soon Tanya and I will begin the process of choosing the grand prize winner and also the recipients of some cute little Foxy KAL button badges (which you can spot in the photos above) - it's going to be tough because all of the hats are so good! ^__^

Millions and millions of thanks to Tanya, who was an amazing co-coordinator and who wrote a fantastic pattern! If you don't have it now, you should definitely get it when Tanya releases it on her Ravelry account! ^__^

And also shout outs to everyone who participated! You rock! ^__^

- Lisa xx

Spool knitted necklace

Hey folks! How are you today? I was sick today, but happily was recovered enough by this evening to take some photos of my new necklace ^_^

I have really been loving mustard yellow lately and that was the first colour I pulled out of my stash when planning this necklace. Then I took a leaf from Pip's style book and paired the mustard yellow with a light grey. Then I added in a few pops of blue to brighten it up a bit ^_^

The necklace is about 94 inches (about 240 cm) long, which leaves plenty of room for it to loop around and because it's yarn it's light and soft. I made it by stitching a long length of spool knitting and then sewing the two ends together. Super easy! Changing colours was done by cutting the end of one colour yarn and knotting in the new colour. Making sure the knots were in the inside of the knitting tube was the most tricky bit, and even then mistakes are easily rectified by pushing the knot into the tube and adding a stitch across it so that it can not come out again.

What do you think?

- Lisa x