Those interested in the fibre arts are finding it easier to source ever more exotic fibres to run through their fingers and weave around needles and hooks, especially with the advent of the internet and the spread of knowledge about the beautiful yarns available to crafty folks.  There are some real luxury yarns on the [...]

Sometimes life gets in the way of knitting, but occasionally there are projects that you have to get finished for a specific deadline. I’ve been rushed off of my feet over the past two days, without a moment to spare towards my efforts to help save the bees but luckily I have a willing [...]

A play for two people, taken from an actual conversation I had with my other half yesterday.
[Two people, a man and a woman, are sitting on a sofa, a hand-wound ball of wool between them.  The woman gets up to shift her bum into a more comfortable position, and the ball of wool rolls off [...]

is a wonderful fund-raising drive backed by the Cornwall-based clothing company ‘Seasalt’.  This year Seasalt is asking for volunteers to snatch up their needles and hooks to make a handmade scarf to raise money in support of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.  Extremely important to our local ecosystems, bumblebee populations in the UK are in dramatic [...]

There are times when the lily just begs to be gilded.  I’m all for the elegance of simplicity, but there are times when you just want something a little bit extra, and flowers are a feminine and timeless way to embellish garments and accessories.
Lesley Stanfield’s beautifully produced book promises 100 flowers for knitters and crocheters [...]

Contain your excitement…
So… several people (ok, two – the beautiful and intelligent Getknitics and Mooncalf) guessed that yesterday’s blob was a leaf!  It was a fig leaf, to be precise – a pattern taken from Lesley Stanfield’s ‘100 flowers to knit and crochet’ which arrived in the post on Saturday. This was a book [...]

Felting is an inexact science at the best of times. Add to that the fact that I cannot really crochet (I have tried to teach myself a few times, but I always forget how to do it as soon as I put the crochet hook down) and what emerged from my washing machine today [...]

I thought I’d try and get a bit more Christmas knitting done and decided on a dress for Annaleese, my niece.
I’m not sure what my sister will think of the colour choices – I know that brown is not a traditional choice for babies, but I do so love the combination of the brown, pink [...]

Today I deviated from knitting into baking, with not-very-good results. These are supposed to be happy sheep enjoying a wonderful life in a meadow of flowers. Instead they look like zombie sheep that have been destined to living in a pool of toxic waste.

Here are some handy gift tags to help ensure that your hand-knits have a happy future when you give them as gifts. These small gift tags can be printed onto normal A4 white card and folded down the centre line. The front features a short message and a bright ball of yarn and [...]

Sock blockers are one of those items in a knitter’s arsenal that are totally unnecessary, yet still for many of us, quite desirable.  For me, it was not the item itself that had held an attraction, but their function.  I was not particularly bothered about owning some sock-shaped pieces of wood, no matter how beautifully [...]

Not long after learning to knit I decided that I fancied making a pair of socks for Craig, my other half.  They seemed to symbolise something old fashioned and intimate by way of affection.  Nothing showy that I’d hope that others would see on him and remark on, but rather just something that he would [...]

When I was a young child one of my favourite activities was to search through my grandmother’s button stash. Stored in a 4 litre ice-cream tub, busting to the brim with buttons of all shapes and sizes, I loved to admire the variety in their sizes, shapes and amazing colours. My nan would [...]

Have you ever been given a random ball of yarn, of unknown origin, that you know you’ll never be able to find another of and which you don’t know what to do with?
When I once took part in a magazine swap, the issue that I received from my swap partner came unopened with two (different) [...]

A few months ago the wonderful UK knitting magazine Yarn Forward published a series of patterns for mystery blankets squares, 6 each month, which were shown only as charts or written instructions, with no pictures of how the finished squares would look.  I thought this would be a good project for me as the mixture [...]