New Knitting Bin

I am so pleased with my most recent purchase, that i really had to tell you all about it.

I have been needing a bigger recepticle for my yarn of late, as i mostly knit or crochet in double which means i need 2 balls of wool at a time. And especially doing colour work, i then need even more at a time. My knitting bagasket that my sister made me is great but i need to hold more volume when sitting in front of the TV crocheting :)

So i wanted a basket or a box to put beside my chair.

I found this online - good old ikea. The Viren Waste Bin from Ikea - Advertised as a bathroom bin, it has a hole in the lid ? why -

Well for me this means i dont have to cut a hole in it.

It can happily hold 6 x 100g of wool and allow me to poke the working yarn through the hole, and work with the lid on :)

Now my living room is a little tidyer and it cost me less than £3!!

On to recent creations.... Some hats for the winter sports mentalists - Snowboard or Ski

I am such a busy bee at the moment, i have so many ideas and things i want to do that i really cant fit them all in, but i want to complete them all now!!!!

I am busy trying to sort out a custom ordering section for my site www.SnowHats.co.uk while trying to make some stock hats to demonstrate all the custom possibilities.

Pink Hand Warmers - Get ready for winter

I decided to knit some hand warmers in the pink yarn I used to make the beret. I like them, they look great together.

Ideal for keeping you little mits toasty whilst cool in the current climate!

Available Here

I seem to be doing a good bit of knitting at the moment. I feel like im neglecting crochet!

Red Buttoned Beanie - Banana Republic Knockoff

Available on ETSY


I have been trying out different styles with this chunky yarn I have.


I found the pattern for the Banana Republic Knockoff on Ravelry and thought it might look nice. I followed the pattern for the idea, but the gague of the yarn was vastly different, so I had to cast on a different amount of stitches.

I made this while on my first long weekend in Cornwall.

I did no kniting crocheting or crafing what so ever on the second long weekend in Cornwall. Mostly walking and sight seeing with my other sister Vicky.

Bubblegum Beanie - and the - Soft Purple Beanie

I have been playing around with my chunky beanie hats, and have made 2 more.

The bubblegum beanie was knit for the purl side out, with a 1x1 rib to finish. I used some Rowan Spray i have had in my stash for ages, and it looks really nice. The white parts of the yarn is really white, and contrasts with the pink spray nicely.




I also created the Soft Purple Beanie from some Acrylic i have got in my stash. I have a lot of this yarn in a few colour ways. Its really soft :)


I knitted this one with a large perl band to finish the hat. But having worn it, i do like it the other way out too!! Looks like a cup cake i think!!


Anyway, I have put these on to my etsy shop if any one is interested. :p


I really do take a bad photo!!

Lemon and Lime - Pearl Beanie - like Topshop

I saw the Topshop Extra Chunky Hat while googling for ideas for a new hat. I really liked it and I have been harbouring some rowan big wool fusion in my stash for some time.

I kitted it top down on two 12mm circs!! Now theres some big needles. I cast off with a 19mm. I was quite lucky to have such broom handles in my collection.


Here is how it turned out. The perl side is really nice, but the knit side is nice too. So I have myself a reversible beanie. 2 looks for the price of one.

I only needed 50g a hat, so I managed to make 2 out of the ball.

One has now been listed on my etsy store, so if you want a really snugly new hat, you know where to find one.

Fad Classic - FO

I have finally Fished - Fad Classic
If you remember back in May, I spent my Birthday money from my mother on the pattern and the cotton.

I have been knitting this slowly on my journeys too and from work.

Im quite happy with it, it feels really nice and soft. Its quite heavy and chunky, but in a nice way.

The only thing is, the weather is so hot and humid here at the moment, I cant bear to wear it. But im sure all that will change soon :(

I have had such a busy week. In the space of 7 days, I have booked 2 snowboarding holidays, 2 weekends away, a day Sphereing and a day out at Go Ape high rope assault course.

The first of the adventure is next weekend so I cant wait :)

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/sianabanana/fad-classic

Stripy Tundra Hat

So yes, I did re make it - when I have something in my head, I just cant leave it be.

Even though, i have had to put my knitting of Fad Classic on hold for it!! Which is nuts, as I am not going to wear this for ages yet!!

Anyway, i did re do it - I wanted make something different so I went for stripy.

I did start to think about experimenting with something other than stockinette, but I wimped out!! Next time - i promise! Actually, I have a borrowed idea up my sleeve, so we will see how that turns out later on.

Here it is then.....

I need to finish it off with some icords and pom poms - as i think these are a must have!! I have been having great fun with the original hat, swinging them around!!

As for the learned lessons - i didn't use the double twisted cast on - i used the knitting on cast on - the way my mother taught me!! and this was better i think - there wasn't as much slack as there was with the double twisted. I did start casting on with the cable cast on - but this felt so rigid. I don't know if its my tension, but the hat looked tiny because there was no give between the stitches. I took them out - I had only done 10 or so, and started again.

I knitted it in the round as i did before, listening to some advice I found online about trying to avoid the colour jog. This worked for most rows, some rows you can see a bit.

When it came to decreasing - i started decreasing a whole inch earlier. I also divided up my decreases with more stitches in the front and back, and less on the sides. I didn't start decreasing the front until after 10 sets (1 row decrease - 1 row plain) of decreases. I don't know if you can see from the pictures, the hat started to get a tent like shape - then I began decreasing the front and back to begin to finish off the hat.

I finished with 2 stitches each side and 6 stitches front and back. I used the 3 needle bind off to finish. This has given me this little sticky up bit at the back - to a sort of point, and i think its quite cute.

Anyway, must go finish the icords now so I can put this one to bed!

Addition .....

I just finished the I cords and bobbles - so here are a few pics

Birthday Money

So what else am I up to...

It was my birthday recently and my mam gave me some money. I bought some cotton yarn to try and make this - http://www.knitandtonic.net/knitandtonic/2006/04/fadclassic.html Fad Classic by Wedny Bernard. I got Patons Leila DK 100% cotton, which should cover the pattern and much to spare.

I thought i would do the right thing on this one and knit up a test swatch to check the gague.

Here is where I am so far..

It looks like its going to knit up small to me, but i will finish the swatch and measure it.

Tundra Hat

Now I know that winter is over, but I saw this hat on another blog and I thought if I dont make it now I will forget about it. Plus, I have been looking for a good reliable hat pattern, and this hat was kind of what I had in my minds eye.

Here is what I saw. http://knittyinpink.blogspot.com/2007/11/glam-rock-ski-hat-aka-vinces-tundra-hat.html It was a take off, from a hat on the Mighty Bosh, wich a few people were making, but I loved the style of the crown and the long ear flaps. I thought - perfect!!

Knitty had also posted a PDF of what she did, so I followed that.

The wool she used is recommended to be knit on a 6mm needled, but her pattern notes stated that she had knitted on 4.5mm needles. She also stated that the hat made was purposely large. So with that in mind, and also only having DK yarn, I thought that if i knitted on a 4.5mm needle also, the hat might turn out the right sort of size. This was a guess, and didnt bother with a swatch. I thought i would be able to tell quite quickly if it was drastically out, as I started on the earflaps first, and they would have been to the wrong scale if the yarn and needle size didnt suit.

So I knitted it up fairly quickly, just taking my time as I know that I wont wear this untill later on this year! Here is how it turned out.



I am really happy with this hat, it fits, slightly over sized, which is good for when im snowboarding as it will need to accomodate my goggles, and also be easy to take on and off without messing my hair up!!

The earflaps are the perfect length - I think i will be quite cozy in this one.


The weight of the hat, and thickness of the knit - about spot on for what i want to use it for. I already know that the yarn will be mega warm, as this is the same yarn i used for the aphrodite jumper.


Some points to note - this was the first time i used the double backward loop method for casting on. I think this possibly was a mistake for me, as the edge then became quite loose. As you can see from the pictures, where i crocheted over the edges, they are still puckering out a bit.


Also, the earflaps still curling a bit, but the crochet edge has helped a lot to stablize them.


The only other thing I might want to try again on this hat is the crown. I do like it, but mine doesnt seem quite the same as the one on knittys site. Now this could quite well be because i used a different weight yarn and therefore knitted up smaller. If you compare my hat to knittys, the crown shaping is quite a bit longer and kind of frames the crown up to a point. where mine just neatly nips in and blends in to a round head!!


I think if i was to redo this, I would think about adjusting the increases and decreses - maybe start earlier and even not work in a square decrease but maybe a oblong one to make the side panels smaller than the top and bottom panels. Now if that didnt make sense to anyone else, it did to me!!

Aphrodite Jumper - Gone Wrong

Since learning to knit and crochet, I have been looking forward to making something that i could wear that wasn't an accessory. Also with the cold weather at the moment, and the over efficient air conditioning in our office, I wanted to make a jumper or cardigan.

As i was looking through patterns on the net, i found this pattern that i loved the look of.

http://www.berroco.com/exclusives/aphrodite/aphrodite.html

I knew i wouldn't buy the yarn that it suggested- if i could get it in the UK it would cost over £45 for the amount the suggested. Also being my first time and knowing my past efforts at sewing, i thought that i might screw it up and be a big waste of money.

So i thought i would just give it a try in some cheap acrylic wool i found. - This stuff was £1 per 100g from Buyology - James C Brett - Top Value Double Knitting. Actually, its the best quality cheap yarn i have found to date. It feels quite soft and was much nicer to work with than the other cheap yarns i have bought. I bought it to make more hats and stuff, but I thought i would give it a try for this project.

I followed the pattern, and made up both sides and seamed them together as instructed.

Here is one side -

It looks quite nice - but once the two sides were seamed together, the ruffly bottom was so large - It just looked wrong.

I didn't really know what to do, as the ruffly bit was at the bottom and i had knitted so much after this - i thought i was going to have to undo it all or throw it in the bin.

Thankfully, i decided to undo where i had joined to the center band, and one by one undo the stitches and put the center band on to circular needles.

I then decided that this wasn't the wool for something so fancy, and it didn't really work. I'm sure the yarn they suggested would have hung better and therefore looked better, but this yarn was not suited. So i thought i would just go plain - i knitted from the bust down to the waist on circulars and switching to a rib in the contrasting colour to finish off.

All in all a learning project really for me. I probably wont have the guts to wear it, but i learned loads about reading patterns and what things work and don't with this yarn.

In the end I used less than 100g of the Turquoise and i think just over 100g of the lime. I had spare wool left over after ripping out the bottom of the jumper.

With some of the bits of yarn left over i made a crochet cuff as you can see in one of the photos.

Circular needle roll

I have wanted to make something to keep all my tools in since my sister made me my bagsket.

I got her to go to the place she got the material from and get me some more so that they would match. She also sent me some lining and some curtain interlining. What a lovely sister i have.

I thought I would start with a circular needle roll as they are the biggest pain and the biggest challenge in making the roll.

My sis pointed out this blog to look at, and low and behold this lady had made one of her own. It was just as I wanted. So I copied it.

The one on chocolateachuva’s blog has 12 pockets – 6 rows.

I currently have the following circs –



Even though what I have would fit in the 12 pockets – I wanted to leave some space just in case I got some more to fill in the gaps. So my pattern was for 7 columns - 14 pockets.




I decided that a pocket of 8cm wide and 13cm deep was enough to hold them.

This is the template I followed


I actually didn’t follow this exact template – I allowed less of a seem allowance, but found it difficult at times, especially as my cutting out wasn’t great – so I have added a bigger seam allowance to the above template to be sure.

I stuck lots of pieces of A4 together and cut out the above templates. If you are lazy like me – start with the biggest and you can keep cutting it down.

After cutting out all my pieces, I started by making the hems on the pockets.

For both pockets – I folded 1cm over and iron flat, then folded another cm over and iron flat – on the long edge.

This has now made the pocket 14cm x 58cm – the pocket will be 13 cm in total – the left over 1cm is for the bottom seem allowance.

I pinned this down and then sewed it down with a straight stitch.

After doing this for both pockets, I went on to pin the 3 main layers of the roll together. The outer , then the inner curtain interlining and finally the lining. The interlining and the lining are the same size and I started by pinning these flush together. Then I laid this on top of the outer layer and left a 2cm margin on all sides.









My sister suggested to use webbing to stick all these pieces together to avoid movement when sewing. I didn’t do this as I didn’t really want to wait more days and go to the shops. When I have something in my head, I just have to do it. But in hindsight, this would be a good plan, as this would keep it nice and flat and together when doing the rest of the stitching.

Next I took out the tape measure and marked the lining with the following measurements – on both sides.
– 1cm for hem
– 8cm for beginning of hem for 2nd row
– 9cm for beginning of 2nd row of pockets
– 14 cm for top of first pocket
– 22cm for top of 2nd pocket
I marked mine in pen as this was hidden later in the hem.

Next I pinned the middle pocket so that the top hemmed edge meets the mark I made at 22cm. I pinned it down entirely and make a straight stitch straight across at the 9cm mark - this leaves a 1cm hem below.

Next I layered the next pocket on- this sits flush with the bottom edge of the lining – and pinned it down.

Then I got the tape measure out again and made vertical pins at 8cm intervals (minus the 1cm each side for the seam. This showed me where to sew the pockets.

I re measured at several intervals to make sure that my pinned lines were straight and even from top to bottom and from left to right.

Then I sewed down these lines. From the top of the middle pocket down to the bottom edge. I left either side of the pockets and sewed these up later.

Next – I folded down 1cm of the outer material and ironed flat, and then folded over again for 1 cm and ironed that flat. This takes the outer material over the inner material by 1 cm making a nice seam – I sewed this all down with a machined straight stitch.

The only things left now are for the buttons to close it up – I tore my hair out for about 5 minutes thinking of what I could use to do this. Was thinking about plaiting some wool or something – but then I remembered I had bought some new hair bands and they were brown. So I used them. I measured out where they would need to go before sewing down the left hand seam. I placed them inside the seam (with the metal bit of the hair band inside the seam) and sewed them in.

Then for the next 10 minutes I was hunting around the house for 2 matching and somewhat related buttons to add on. Thankfully I had some spare off a coat that looked ok and I sewed them on.

It didn’t take to long to do – couple of hours. It took just as much time I think to sort out all the needles and put them in.

It’s not perfect – my machine sewing technique has never been the neatest. But it wasn’t a bad effort for me. :)



Thank you carol for being my material shopper and general question answerer. :)

Ski Hat

A friend of mine, who was intriqued by my speed crochet on the car journey, asked me if i could make him a hat to match his ski boots.



I made this.

I knitted this one top down. Which was ok, but hard work to do on the DPNs. The reason i wanted to do this one top down was so that i could work out the size better on the fly, rather than having to cast on the right amount of stitches. This would have been ok, except as the hat grew, I still wasnt able to try the hat on as the circular needles were too small to fit it on my head. I should have really changed over to the DPNs again to do this.

Thist wasnt my best effort at a hat, and might make it again later to do a better job of it.