Reveiws and recent projects

Sorry for the long absence, it's been a very busy year for me, I've moved house, had another baby and got a dog!
Anyway enough of the excuses and onto the projects. A while back I knitted a lovely cardigan called Wayside Lace cardigan. (i got the pattern on Ravelry) I love the stitch pattern but i didn't like the way the cardigan fit (its a waterfall wrap cardigan) so i decided I'd revisit it a little while ago and used my usual jumper pattern but incorporated the wayside lace stitch pattern. My usual size for a jumper is 38" which is baggy and how i like it, but with the lace and cables it ended up quite a snug jumper, but still fits well and i think looks great. I acidentally picked up the wrong amount of stitches on the sides of the neck so it came out a bit square but all in all i have to say this is now my favourite jumper to wear

For some reason my photo of the finished jumper is upside down and I'm not sure how to sort it, so will attempt this later!

As the weather is getting colder it was time to knit hats for the boys so I used the dead fish hat knitting pattern and attempted my first ever short rows (they're not as hard as you'd think or I could've just done them wrong haha)

I guessed with the fins and tail and added the little curly bits and bobs your teapot - a magicarp hat!

The stegasaurus hat was done in the same way but I lengthened the tail an knitted to a point, crocheted the plates, spikes and teeth and have a very happy boy wuith a new hat!







Next up is a pumpkin hat knitted to a pattern called self striping childrens hat on ravelry, I think I did something like k6, p1 around the hat then added the little leaf etc

I added a couple of extra rounds at the top for the stalk. It fits alot better then the picture, its actually over my knee for the photo! I said to my hubby that I should get one of those hairdressing dolls so I can take better photos of the hats.
I've almost finished a Pikachu hat for a friends little boy, but refuse to get it ifnished until I get the gyardos hat done for her oldest son. I don't want them to think Ive forgotten one of them! I'll add photos when I'm done.

I have also starting knitting school jumpers. It seems that they are super expensive here so I thought I'd have a go to see if I can knit them a bit cheaper to help out parents and also make a bit of extra cash. One of my friends gladly let me practise and make one for her daughter.

I found a lovely stitch pattern on a Finnish pattern so after a little translating this is what it looks like (i'm pretty sure I could've found it in english but where's the fun in that!)

This is the first attempt, which my friend loved, but it was a little short for her daughter so I made a second one

I didn't add the ribbon to this one as it actually took me longer to add the ribbon the first time then it did to knit both jumpers!
It turned out pretty well though. Another frind took the smaller jumper and it fits her little girl so we will just change the ribbon to her school colours instead!



AT the moment I'm working on  Drops pattern for a cardigan. I'm hoping to turn it into a coat as I find it really hard to find the coat i want. I look for something that is either somewhat waterproof or lightweight or both, so hopefully this will fit the bill. It wont be very waterproof but it should be fairly light even when wet and warm. I'm considering lining it for extra warmth when its windy but i'll have to finish knitting it first then decide. My plan is to also add a hood.

So far so good except I misaligned the patter at the start *sigh* sorted it now though so hopefully it wont be too noticable!

Now onto the reviews. I have always used cheap knitting needles. I prefer bamboo needles as they are lighter when knitting, but I've foudn myself knitting more and more in the round (i hate sewing up) so I had some very cheap circular needles. The ends got blunt fairly quickly which isn't a problem for stocking stitch but lace is a little harder with blunt needles, so i decided it was time to invest in some decent needles. I scoured the internet looking for a decnet interchangeable set at a reasonable price. Wool warehouse has some drops needles at £17.50 which I belive fit with knitpro tips, but they were out of stock and I'm impatenient. I settled on knit picks nickel coated set which was just less than £30 on amazon. I have to say they are the nicest needles I've ever had the pleasure to knit with. No more squeeky wool or cables falling off, sticthes getting stuck on the join, they are brilliant and I'd definitly reccommend them!
I've also been branching out a little with wool (or shoudl I say yarn as technically 100% acrylic can't be classed as wool i suppose) I bought some DK from marriners. Its pretty much the same as Robin DK except it doesn't seem to fluff up as much. I've noticed that Robin fluffs quite a lot and stylecraft special bobbles quite quickly. Marriner seems to fluff more than bobble but still not as much as Robin. The best part is its only £1 per ball and orders over £25 are free delivery. My only problem with marriner is they don't have bottle green, which is the colour i need for the boys school jumpers, but to be honest its more of an observation than a complaint!
The caridgan I'm knitting at the moment is aran/worseted weight so I bought some Robin aran with wool (which I've never used before) So far its knitting up really nicely and it feels really soft so I'm definitly going to be using it again, however I might try marriners aran with wool as its a bit cheaper so i can compare!

Just in case I haven't said before or there are people looking for websites for patterns. I'll give my recommendations on them too. I use ravelry quite a bit. You can filter results by yarn weight and free/paid for patterns which is quite useful. Its also handy to look at the projects others have done as there are often realy helpful notes in there. when ever possible i try to add notes on my projects in case I've accidentally fdone something useful haha. I also find it helpful to look at projects before selecting a pattern to knit. I recently wanted to knit a bunny toy for my youngest so I trawled through ravelry. I found one pattern in particular which looked like just the thing I wanted, but when I looked at the projects others had done it was all mishapen and weird looking so I decided on a different pattern. It saved me wasting the time and yarn making something I owuln't be happy with.

Garnstudio (drops) is a brilliant website for patterns. They are all free and they have everything from home, petsm, kids, ladies, men etc. The only thing I will say is their patterns can be a bit vague at times (like how to centre your pattern!) They certainly don't hold your hand like other patterns but I'm hoping i'll get an extra sense of achievement after completing my latest drops project. I've used theor patterns before but had to modify them as they weren't the size I was looking for (e.g. baby suit that started at 0-3months and i wanted newborn size)

Pinterest is another great tool for finding patterns but beware there arn't always patterns to go with the wonderful photos so it involves alot of frustration for me! I use it mostly to save ideas rather than actual patterns so if i see a jumper with a design i like i save it on there to make a chart from later.

As for buying patterns I've found my favorite to be Sirdar. Every Sirdar pattern I've knitted has turned out great! King Cole is another one which I find quite good. I recently bought a shoe pattern (not entirely sure why when I can find most of the patterns on ravelry) I've only ever knitted one James Brett pattern and I hated it so I steer clear. I must admit that it was probably down to my knitting rather than the pattern but it just looked awful and it took alot of work!

Anyway thats it for now, hoep you enjoyed my little update!