Tuesday 30 October 2012

Vintage patterns! For free!

I'm at it again with the exclamation marks.

Anyway, what I'd planned to do was follow up that recent post with one aimed at those who like a touch of nostalgia knitted into their woollies. And I was going to recommend freevintageknitting.com and freevintagecrochet.com, because they're such wonderful sites, each of them with thousands of patterns, in sensible categories, with pictures, the lot.

But as they're both down tonight for some reason, I'm hesitating...

So, I think for now I'll just point you in the direction of something completely different - a modern vintage site:
http://vintageknitwit.com, which belongs to Mary Beth Petrone, who designs the most gorgeous baby hats with a vintage favour.

Here we have the Lace Brim Medallion Daisy Hat and the Ladybug Roll Brim Hat - pictures from Mary Beth's site and used with her permission. Gorgeous, huh? Pity my baby girl's eighteen now!

Monday 22 October 2012

Patterns! For free!

It's half-term, it's drizzling, the fair's on...everything's just as it should be. (Was going to indulge in another exclamation mark there, but I don't want to give you a headache and, in real life, I'm not at all an exclamation mark sort of person, so I won't.) Anyway, in keeping with the mellow autumn mood, I'm being kind today and offering a little helpful info. Because, when the children have gone back to school you'll want to be knitting, right? Or crocheting? So, here's some free pattern sources:


First stop, obviously, is ravelry.com. Most of you will know about the patterns on rav but, if you don't, well, there are lots - knitting and crochet - some to pay for, some free. Quality varies, but they cover the entire range of whatever in the world you could possibly want to knit and many, many things no well-balanced person would ever consider knitting. Except possibly as a joke.

Then there's allaboutyou.com - knitting and crochet patterns. These were mostly originally published in Prima and similar mags, so good quality, mainstream patterns.

The coatscrafts.co.uk site has lots of 'projects' (aka patterns) - many for yarns we stock.

If you don't mind U.S. terminology, take a look at both knittingpatterncentral.com and knitty.com. Knittingpatterncentral in particular is great for unusual requests. Dog coats, perhaps, or golf club covers. I suspect it was on there that I found the posing pouch pattern - what an interesting knit that was.

Knitty has beautiful clothes - proper clothes - ones you might want to make. Fewer knitted bikinis; more cabled ganseys. I'm generalising - there could be hundreds of bikini patterns on knitty, but I get the impression of a site featuring good stuff, that's all. Comes out every season too like a real magazine so always something new.

And just finally, sneak a peek at frabjousfibers.com - great patterns for weird and wonderful yarns like the banana fibre and the ribbons. I love daft fibres that anyone with any sense would give a wide berth and it seems like the people at frabjous fibers do too.

So...have I whetted your appetite? Go on, have a google - lots more out there.

Monday 15 October 2012

Knit a Christmas Clanger competition

Yorkshire Cancer Research are running a comp to knit or sew the best-dressed Christmas Clanger; enter and you'll be in with a chance to win a luxury hamper. Sounds good, huh? See this page for more info and inspiration.

Friday 12 October 2012

My first shawl

This is my nearly-finished Elise shawl, made from a ball of Kureyon sock yarn. In fact, it's a ball that a lady brought back to the shop, disappointed that she couldn't get it to cast on without falling apart... Luckily it hasn't fallen apart for me altho', like all the Noros, it's a bit thick and thin. Full of rascally character, I like to think.

The lovely Rachel stood beside me for about an hour last Saturday morning (thank you, Rachel!) while I started this over and over again till, by Jove, I'd got it... Possibly full of errors obvious to a more discerning eye than mine, but who cares, it's clearly a shawl, and it's clearly quite pretty. That'll do for me.

Monday 8 October 2012

Light Garden

We had a trip out to the lovely Bradford Light Garden yesterday. It's only there for a few more days, but do visit if you can. The photos speak for themselves.
Right in the city centre, so no real transport problems, just beautiful effects and lots of families having a good time.

Monday 1 October 2012

New Zealand Print

No idea why it's called New Zealand - but there it is, as Harry Worth used to add. Notwithstanding that, it is a really beautiful, reasonably-priced, multi-coloured, soft and entirely excellent aran weight. Not self-striping, it knits up into a pretty, heathered effect. One of our lovely regulars described it as 'magic'.



We're going to be buying NZ in plain colours at some point too, as a replacement for the dear, (almost) departed Cygnet Truly Wool Rich Aran. There were other, slightly cheaper replacement possibilities but the NZ is the best in our opinion. We're not going to start trying to sell you anything we wouldn't knit with ourselves.