Christmas decorations.

My Christmas decorations are not really coming along well ive brought the wool but because of a very old and slightly broken washing machine ive not been able to felt the wool. 

since then i have been able to felt my pieces in the machine and it did not go well they over-felted to a massive degree.  

my christmas baubbles are going well 

sorry for the wait.

im so sorry for not posting for over 20 days i cant believe it i thought it had only been about a week not 3 xmas was so busy and i had so much to knit it was untrue .
pics to follow soon

The noro shawl that never ends.

My noro shawl never ends it keeps growing but is never big enough, being a circle it does need to quite large to be used as a scarf or shawl but i predict that i wont have it finished before Christmas it just seems to be eating up the wool and i think i may need a third ball of yarn meaning it would have taken over 1800 meters of yarn to finish the project.
I have really now been working on it very much at all as one row is so long and takes so long to do, also with Christmas not very long away and im very busy with making christmas presents.

christmas presents.

My Christmas knit list seems so be increasing by the day currently it stands at,
dads jumper , toms mobius hat, Emma and jacks socks, Christmas decorations and the children's knitting as well as Christmas cards.
Emmas socks are coming along well but dads jumper is taking quite a log time.

yesterday i finally found a pattern that i liked for jacks socks on ravlery which is a spiral sock but i need to slightly adjust the stitch count to make them ever so slightly bigger. 

Christmas fair's

As christmas is fast coming upon us i am just starting preparation for Christmas fairs and have started making my Christmas wreath as well as decorations for the tree.
Decorations are very easy and quick to make for trees and are great for presents as well as the fairs.
My Dorset buttons have been coming along well and im very happy with adding in the metallic thread.

overall i finished all of the things i needed for the fair but it did take longer than expected which made for a little stress. 

overall the fair did go very well the weather was not on our side and trade was slow but with very busy periods. 

The fair had loats of really nice stalls with christmas stalls very popular as well as teh fantastic cake maing stalls. 

Mobius hat omg !!

My brother has an obsession with my mobius knitting he loves a shawl that i made for him last year for Christmas.

So this year i decided to knit a mobius hat which has become a little more complex than i first thought.

I decided to make the hat from my favourite wool lambs pride worsted weight wool in a lovely shade of copper with a black trim.

This hat when tried on does not look too good so im going to try and re knit some of it to try and make it look a llittle better im going to also see if im going to put a pom pom on the hat. 

round and round we go.

Dads jumper is coming along well but i am getting very bored with going round and round in the round knitting plain until the armhole and as dad is a very tall man i need to make it nearly 4 inches longer to its not like a crop jumper.
The very interesting part is yet to come where i add the sleeves in at the same time as knitting up the armhole shaping.

Before i add in the sleeves i need to knit both of them to the correct length and them add them into the jumper and decrease down using raglan sleeves.
i have started the sleeves but they are taking time but i should hopefully get the jumper done for Christmas.

But while out at a local wool shop i was able to get some buttons for the jumper as i was trying to get vintage buttons on ebay but they were too expensive and i could not get the 9 i wanted so i could have a spare.

The noro shawl lives on.

The noro shawl which i have been knitting for what feels like a century does finally seem to be getting bigger and i can see the finish in sight i hope.

As much as i seem to knit the shawl never seems to be coming to an end i knit and knit but i do think ill end up having to increase teh shawl to 1000 stitches i just hope the colour of the wool has not been discontinued.

over the year that i have been knitting the shawl i really have got quite bored of it but i will finish it as soon as possible. 

childrens knitting

Over the last four weeks the knitting club has been going from strength to strength the small reception children are all grasping knitting very well and next week in week 5 we are going to start our knitting projects for Christmas.
we are going to make Christmas babbles and Christmas chains.
The knitting is going well and im very impressed with the children and the progress that they are making.
The wool we are using for the club is mostly snowflake by sidar and king cole sparkle yarn for or baubles and decorations.

This week we have been using ricc creative frill wool which you usually use to make scarfs but we have decsided to make tinsel for teh tree.

noro shawl.

Noro is one of my favourite yarns and when they brought out the lace weight i brought two balls and for about 18 months i have been unsuccessfully knitting a shawl from the wool.
its not the patterns the pattern is lovely its from jon dun of easy knits and its the 2nd shawl pattern but its just taking a very long time as it is nearly 500 stitches in the circle to create the shawl.
The shawl is coming along well and ive decided to change the pattern slightly as its coming out slightly small im adding in some panels of garter stitch to break up the lace pannels.
I think that the size of the shawl is going to finish a little on the small size so i may have to increase the size again to end up with 1000 stitches.
This is very daunting but i think its the only way to make it a usable size.

Being a circle this is why i think  it will have to be so much bigger so i can be used a scarf.

new wool from the isle of white and ebay.

Ive never understood my mums love of ebay until about 3 weeks ago when i started looking at what wool i could get branded wool for an absolute steal. my favourite wool lambs pride was on there for 9 balls for just under 30 pound.
The amount of rowan and vintage buttons is astonishing am im loving looking at the vintage buttons which seem to be for sale in abundance.
when i was on holiday at the isle of white i brought some amazing icelandic wool that i going to make a mobius hat with.

 
I amso happy with the wool and cant wait to start knitting for Christmas adding socks and hats to the Christmas pile.
The only wool im not so happy with is this fun yarn which i brought for a child at the knitting club who wants to make an easy scarf.

Alan dart

One of the most surprising things to come out of the weekend was the wonderful collection of Alan dart toys made my the man himself at our hosts house, the pictures really don't to them justice.

The amount of different characters is really mind boggling along with the wonderful Beatrice potter characters as well as Wallace and gromit. 

My favourite toys happen to be the wombles ive always loved the wombles. 

As you know ive tried to make a Alan dart toy before Paddington and thank god he was not in this collection to shame me  for my disastrous attempt at an Alan dart toy. 

collective yarnstorm !!!

As we have all had practise doing a solo yarnstorm we were all extremely excited for our collective yarn storm.
As we were in ventor on the seaside we decided to do a smugglers theme for our yarn storm attaching the dolls and accessories to the famous barometer on the seafront.
This yarn storms was quite difficult the weather was much worse than the say before and there was a strong wind and being on top of a ladder was actually quite difficult as i did not dress in my most smart way.
After some times we realised that the clock was too tall so we used fishing wire to attach our smugglers scene.
overall the Piece took an hour and a half to get finished before it started to really rain.

After the collective yarnstorm we went back to the b a b to have our graduation ceremony and get our goodie bags before we all headed home.
ive had a great time in the isle of white and will definitely be yarnstorming soon.