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Follow Jen and Jim's many knitting and craft adventures, including expert knitting tips, tutorials and book reviews, with bonus quilting and other crafty content.
Some people write New Year’s resolutions, others choose a word for the year, and most people don’t do either! I was feeling particularly philosophical on New Year’s Day this year, and decided that I would try to “set the tone” for the year.
I spent the day doing a little of a few things that I hoped I would do more of through the year. I tried to create a tasting platter for the year to come, if you will!
Read moreI’m so thrilled with my finished Granito Sweater! Once again, a 4ply garment has taken me around a year from start to finish, in amongst a LOT of work knitting and smaller pieces. At this point in my life I’m pretty happy with that. It would be easy to feel like I wasn’t making progress and that it would never be finished, but in reality – when I was working on it – it flew along.
Read moreMany years ago, I wrote an occasional column for Simply Knitting entitled Knitting Ruined My Wife. As Jen mentioned in her introduction to this month’s Boost Your Knitting technique, the tubular cast on in the round, it was her obsession with this particular method of starting a project that led to the creation of the column. Today, I thought it’d be fun to take a dive in my archives and share the piece with you.
Read moreThis spring, I’m thinking of skipping my dalliance with warmer weather knitting altogether, and working ahead on some projects to wear next autumn. If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, spring can be a great time to snag some deals on Aran weight wool — we’ve got several jumpers-worth of Jamieson & Smith Shetland Aran, for instance, on sale for just £2.40 a ball! And of course, our friends in the Southern Hemisphere are starting to feel cooler temps, perfect for knitting something thick and cozy. Here’s five knits I love that would look great in J&S Aran, Something to Knit With Aran, or any other Aran weight yarn of your choosing!
Read moreHat knitting season is definitely here! I can smell it in the crisp morning air, and my needles are already itching to cast on all the hats!
Read more…and the knitting is easy!
As promised I’ve been plodding away on the body of my Ola Yoke and my Rainbow Socks. It doesn’t make for very interesting blog posts I’m afraid! I’ve passed the halfway point on Ola’s body, and I’m so excited to reach the beautiful colourwork of the yoke. There’s still quite a bit of stocking stitch to work through before I reach that point though! My Rainbow Socks have all of the end of term concerts, services and productions knitted into them. I’m nearly at the toe of the first sock, which is quite good going seeing as I keep them in my handbag and only work on them when I’m out and about. I will always associate them with this heatwave. I’m pretty sure that’s going to make them extra cosy when they are done.
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I had a great trip to Damsdorf, Germany last weekend, to visit Strickmich! Headquarters. We had great weather (not too hot!) and Martina and Peter and the family were so welcoming. One of the best things about it was that I got absolutely LOADS of knitting done. Since the hot weather started here in the south-west, the kids have been finding it really hard to get to sleep in the evenings. This means that my normal 90 minutes of knitting between their bedtime and mine has dwindled down to 45 minutes if I'm lucky, which frankly isn't enough to keep my sanity! So it was a welcome break to have travelling time and then a relaxed weekend with Martina and her family to recharge my knitting batteries somewhat.
Read moreOne of the things I've started trying to do with the kids is to teach them interesting words. So for the last few weeks we have had a word of the week, with a challenge to use it somewhere in their work at school. Last week's word was actually a pair of words: optimist and pessimist. And these words seem particularly apt to me as I have been thinking of what I would like to knit over the holidays...
Read moreIt's the first of June, it's pattern release day, so summer must be here.
The technique for June, the first of the summer projects within A Year of Techniques, is knitted-on edging, a common feature in shawls, blankets and so on. This month's pattern is the Talmadge Cloche, designed by Rosemary (Romi) Hill.
Read moreIf you're a regular reader, you'll know that April's A Year of Techniques technique was intarsia. Most knitters taking part in our KAL followed Bristol Ivy's Brambling shawl pattern, but others took the technique and had a go at something else for an extra challenge, as you will see.
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