I belong to several Facebook knitting groups. One thing that stands out for me as a designer is the number of times knitters vent their frustration about the patterns they are trying to knit. The common thread is twofold: They don’t understand the pattern instructions or the pattern does not make sense to them. Too often, when I look at …
BLOGGING
The month of April had its fair share of rewards and tribulations. The beginning of the month saw Peter and myself returning home from a month in Ireland. Ireland is one of my favourite places to be – not only for its scenery, heritage and people but also because it is the home of Glenn, Vincent and Gabriel, our son …
Even the name is beautiful – Cushendale. I am of course talking about the woollen mill in the quaint and historical town of Graiguenamanagh in Kilkenny, Ireland. We have been in Ireland (the Republic and Northern Ireland) for a few weeks now. The main reason for our visit has been to catch up with family but naturally, to visit Ireland …
There seems to be out there in knitting land a bit of confusion to the written pattern of Creeping Vines that I posted in my stitch library. There were a couple of errors in the pattern and I apologise for this. These errors have now been corrected and an updated version of the pattern is now in the stitch library. …
One of life’s little pleasures for me is to devour stitch library/encyclopedia’s. I can spend hours happily leafing through printed books like Norah Gaughan’s Knitted Cable Sourcebook, Mary Jane Mucklestone’s 200 Fair Isle Designs, The Harmony Guides to Knitting Stitches series and The Vogue knitting Stitchionary series. In short, I am a sucker for a good book of stitch patterns. …
I remember when Sandra Coney’s book Standing in the Sunshine was published in 1993. An illustrated book, it celebrated the social history of New Zealand women in the 100 years following 1893. The significance of that date was of course New Zealand women won the right to vote. At the time, I was a young mum of three growing children, …
They arrived! I hate sending parcels overseas as I am always worried that the parcels will get lost in transit. So, it was a huge relief when Rose sent me a photo of herself wearing the hat and scarf I designed and knitted especially for her. The sunshine yellow is definitely Rose’s colour. She looks amazing. Rose’s scarf and hat …
Designing and knitting Rose’s scarf and hat has been a real joy. Rose, who lives in New Hampshire, USA is a very special friend and I decided to knit the scarf and hat as a Christmas present for her as winter in NH can be incredibly cold. Yellow is Rose’s favourite colour – and the yellow yarn I chose will …
Did you know scarves have been worn since ancient times? I certainly didn’t. According to Wikipedia, the 9th century BC Statue of Ashurnasirpal 11 is wearing a shawl and, in Ancient Rome, men wore what was known as a Focale to wipe sweat from their faces during hot summers. In the reign of Emperor Cheng, cloth scarves were used as …
It is finished! Skyline Rose is the first cardigan completed using Touch Yarns wool. It is an 8 ply Merino, soft and lovely to work with. The pattern will be available via my Ravelry page in the next couple of weeks.