Nicolette

Just before Christmas when I was at my local Knit and Natter Group in the Library, we were talking about which needle crafts we enjoyed. I said that I love knitting and I used to make a lot of patchwork but had never really come to grips with crochet. The skill just never quite clicked even though I had been shown enough to be able to crochet the ears on  a pair of mouse slippers for the Sasha Dolls. That was as far as my attempts with crochet had ever gone even though I really wanted a Granny Square Crocheted Blanket. Someone in the group said crochet is really easy, I’ll show you… several of us gathered around to watch and try.

The following day when I was shopping I came across “the Cool Girl’s Guide to Crochet” by Nicki Trench. Her instructions are clearly written and accompanied by instructional photographs and crochet has finally clicked for me. I stopped worrying about whether I was holding the hook and tensioning the yarn correctly. I just made a slip knot and started a chain, then I followed the instructions to practice single crochet, double crochet, treble, half treble, double treble, making chain spaces and clusters.[Read More]

Wow, it has been an exciting couple of days, with the Giro d’Italia’s opening stages taking place in Northern Ireland.

Over the past few weeks and days, the city has gradually turned pink… We watched the time trials on TV from the start at the Titanic Building to the end outside the City Hall. This route went through East and South Belfast.

On Holywood Road at the library, a change occurred in the CS Lewis sculpture. The Knit and Natter group were having some fun with pink yarn.[Read More]

I’ve taken part in several swaps over the years. I particularly enjoyed this yarn swap a few years ago on Ravelry.

It was a secret surprise swap with no communication between the swap partners. Also, we were sending our package to a different person than the person we were receiving our swap package from. This helped ensure there would be no contact between the swap partners.

The minimum amount to spend on the package was £25 plus package and posting. The package would contain 7 individually wrapped parcels. One parcel would be opened every day for one week and the blogger would then write a daily blog post for the week.

There were a few specific items that had to be included: 100g of new yarn or fibre; Some type of knitting notion; Embellishments; A pattern. This covered 4 of the parcel contents. There were a few suggestions for the remaining parcels: Something handmade; a magazine; a book; stationery; a treat; something small that would add a fun element to the photographs our swap partner would take.

So how were we to discover what our swap partner would like? What type of patterns did they enjoyed knitting?[Read More]