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The Friday Night Knitting Club

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Have you ever wondered what the lives of other knitters are like?

The Friday Night Knitting Club written by Kate Jacobs is about a single Mum, Georgia Walker, her shop on Broadway’s Upper East Side in New York and a group of friends who visit her yarn shop.  It is a book about female friendships, loves, parenthood and, of course… knitting.

Friday Night Knitting Club

The book was Kate Jacobs’ debut which describes the concerns and hopes of the group members as they deal with heartaches, difficulties and joyful moments.[Read More]

Unravel A Sock & Rejuvenate the Yarn

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When I buy the gorgeous Opal ranges for the Knitting Squirrel’s Yarn Shop, sometimes, in the bottom of the box there is a sample sock. Usually, I glance at the sample sock and set it aside for later. Today, when the new Gallery and Best Friends Opal ranges arrived, there was a sock in the bottom of the box, machine knit using one of my favourite colours in the Gallery sock yarn range – Blue Whale in the Red Sea – isn’t this a cool name for a gorgeous colour combination? I’ve always felt there was enough yarn in the sample sock to make it worthwhile unravelling the sock and rejuvenating the yarn for using in a new project.

Opal Gallery 8887 Blue Whale in the Red Sea Sock

So today, later... finally arrived for the sample socks in these vibrant yarns: Gallery – Blue Whale in Red Sea, Play – Chase, and Beachcombing – Driftwood.[Read More]

Valentine Fingerless Mitts

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These gorgeous Valentine Fingerless Mitts are based on my basic Fingerless Mitts pattern. The Valentine Fingerless Mitts fit the hand snugly by continuing a section of the ribbing from the cast on cuff to the cast off cuff through the stocking stitch section of the mitts.

Valentine Fingerless Mitts

Everyone who has worn these fingerless mitts loves the cosy fit. Sweet & Spicy 2 in Chilli 8616 is a delectable pink and biscuit colour combination that is very romantic and feminine. Perfect for wearing on Valentine’s Day![Read More]

Blue Fair Isle Fingerless Mitts

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The Blue Fair Isle Fingerless Mitts are just beautiful. Gorgeous to wear.

These fair isle fingerless mitts are based on the Small Lozenge Star Gloves designed by Wilma Malcolmson and printed in Knitting Fair Isle Mittens and Gloves by Carol Rasmussen Noble. There are many beautiful charts in this book.

Blue Fair Isle Fingerless Mitts

I used Mussel Blue from the Jamieson & Smith Shetland Heritage wool range for the main colour for these mitts.[Read More]

Frogging Frees the Mind

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I love to have several projects in progress at the same time. At the moment, I have 9 WIPs that I am working on, most need to be finished for Christmas. But there are also the projects that are on the Back Burner and they seemed to be growing in numbers and preying on my mind.

The Back Burner projects seem to have been growing over the last couple of years. So a while ago I lifted out all of my back burner projects and looked at them lying on the table.

  • Alpaca bunny
  • Snowflake Fingerless Gloves
  • Fingerless Texels
  • Lattice Scarf
  • Rilievi Scarf
  • Hub of Fashion Socks
  • I Love Gansey Socks
  • Reina Socks
  • Sunshine Socks
  • Vorticity Socks

I decided to divide the projects into 3 groups: Love This; Hate This; Keep as Sample;

Alpaca Bunny

Alpaca Bunny

This will be the Bunny Girl in a Dotty Dress designed by Julie Williams of Little Cotton Rabbits. I’m using Artesano Alpaca for the bunny. Love the slightly fuzzy texture. Okay, I haven’t touched this project in a while but I still want to finish this gorgeous bunny! Definite “Love This” work in progress.[Read More]

Art of Swatching – Winter Warmth

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Art of Swatching – Winter Warmth was inspired by the cold weather outside, venturing out for walks wrapped up in scarves, mittens and cosy coats. Snug indoors in woolly sweaters, sipping hot chocolate and sitting by cosy open fires toasting our toes…

The central colour theme for Winter Warmth was the image of witch hazel in its full autumn glory. This was inspirational because there was such an amazing range of colours from reds, plum, greens, golds, russet and brown. I loved swatching with these colours in my ideas book and ended up with 4 pages of swatches and ideas for the Winter Warmth collection. The Evergreen Collection also evolved from this set of ideas pages. These colours are a pleasure to work with.

Winter Warmth Sasha Collection

One of the pleasures of creating Winter Warmth was collecting the beautiful selection of wool, silk, tweed and bamboo yarns and the gorgeous cotton fabrics and corduroys.[Read More]

Red Fair Isle Fingerless Mitts

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I love knitting fair isle. I also love fingerless mitts. So the Red Fair Isle Mitts are just the perfect combination. Fingerless Mitts are just so useful when walking the dog and throwing his sticks. J&S Shetland Heritage is 100% real shetland wool and is a wonderful fibre to knit with. The finished mitts are incredibly light weight yet so very warm and cosy.

The Red Fair Isle Fingerless Mitts are based on the Cunningsburgh Gloves pattern in the Art of Fair Isle Knitting by Ann Feitelson.

Red Fair Isle Fingerless Mitts Collage

I used 4 colours of Jamieson and Smith Shetland Heritage wool.[Read More]

Daydream of A Castle in the Air

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The Knitting Squirrel recently stocked the wonderful new range of Opal Daydream, a cosy 6ply sock yarn that knits as a DK weight yarn. The ball is 420 metres long and 150 grams. I loved the gorgeous colours in the Daydream range but decided to use Daydream of A Castle in the Air for this pair of socks as I really loved this colour combination.

Dream of a Castle in the Air

There aren’t very many patterns around for the 6ply sock yarns. The 6ply range is a bit more expensive but the finished socks are very warm and cosy. In fact, I am wearing this pair of socks while I write this. [Read More]

Acht Fair Isle Hat

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I really enjoyed knitting the beautiful Acht Fair Isle Hat designed by Hazel Tindall.

“Acht is the Shetland dialect word for a valuable possession – hopefully you will find that is a good description of your finished hat. The sides are quite long – in Shetland’s windy climate it’s good to be sure your hat won’t blow off.” Hazel Tindall

Having the sides quite long is also a benefit for our cold wet Northern Irish climate too. It is nice to have warm ears!

Acht Fair Isle Hat

The Acht Hat uses 2 dark and 2 light colours of Shetland wool.[Read More]