Year: 2012

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Chickens!

We’ve got chickens! Yep, proper egg laying, worm eating chickens! We picked them up from a local farm just over a week ago and they’ve already graced us with 6 eggs between two of them!

Cokey (white) Sussex Star
Pickles (brown) Columbian Blacktail
Bosco (black) Bovans Nera

When I let them out of the coop this morning I found 2 soft shelled eggs underneath the roost so think the third one is going to start laying proper hard shelled eggs any day now! Feel a bit bad for whoever it was that pushed two out last night though!

Here they are on day one in their new coop:
Chicken coop & run

Cokey has been laying since a few days after we got her! Then one of the other ones laid a speckled egg just the other day but we aren’t sure if it’s Pickles (the brown one) or Bosco (the black one).

CokeyPicklesBos

The eggs we’ve had so far have been really tasty and we’re looking forward to the abundance of eggs once all three are regularly laying!

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Pull Me Over – Knitting Pattern

Pull Me Over knitting pattern has just been released! A worsted or heavy dk weight ribbed pullover. Knit top down, in the round, with waist shaping built in, and three different styles of sleeves.

Sleeve Options

There are cap sleeves (blue example), long ribbed sleeves with a simple BO (red example), and long stockinette sleeves with a garter cuff.

The pattern is available for £5.00 and will be delivered in PDF format: Buy the pattern here
Or if you are on Ravelry you can buy it here.

The fit: It is designed with 2” of negative ease. The body ribbing is designed to provide stretch and shape to the sweater. If you would like the sweater to be less fitted than the example, choose one size larger than your usual high bust measurement.

The examples: The sweaters in the pattern are both 34” and are shown on myself with a 35” high bust measurement.

The yardage:
Cap Sleeves: 501 (550, 631, 681, 751, 801, 873, 926)yds / 458 (503, 577, 622, 687, 732, 798, 846)m
Long sleeves: 757 (820, 911, 973, 1054, 1116, 1199, 1258)yds / 692 (750, 833, 890, 964, 1020, 1096, 1150)m

High bust measurement: To measure your high bust run the tape measure around your body directly underneath your underarms and above your actual bust. Round down to the nearest size if you would like it to fit as in the examples. Go up a size if you’d like a looser fit. I’ve written a whole post about choosing the right size which you can read here.

Get your copy here:

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Making button placement easy

As I’m nearing the end of a project I’m usually quite eager to get onto the next new shiny, and already eyeing up and possibly winding the yarn for the next project.

Mary Mary buttons When it’s time to do the finishing touches I have been known to leave the nearly finished wip in a corner somewhere trying to pretend it doesn’t exist, so anything that makes this finishing step quicker or easier makes me a very happy girl!

There are some great tips floating around that make it easier to ensure your buttons are lined up properly with your buttonholes but the method I’ve found recently takes away all the guessing and re-counting. Yay!

What to do
When it’s time to knit a buttonhole row I take a removable stitch marker and place it around the 3rd or 4th stitch (depending on how far in your buttonhole is designed to go) and then knit across before creating your buttonhole. This way, once I’m done, I just go through one at a time and replace the stitch markers with buttons. (You could, of course, do this the other way around if you need to knit your buttonhole at the beginning of the row!)

Extra special bonus point! With the removable stitch markers in place while you knit it means easier trying on because you can treat the stitch markers like buttons, pulling them through the buttonholes to hold the cardi shut.

Mary Mary - Button Placement flat example

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Mary Mary Cardigan – Knitting Pattern

Mary Mary has now been released 😀

Mary Mary Cardigan - Front of cardi

Mary Mary - Side of cardigan

A cap sleeved, scoop necked, light-weight cardi knit top down with cable details on the bust and sides, closed by pairs of buttons.

Sizes available: 26 (30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46)” (High bust measurement)
(High bust is the measurement above your bust, directly under your underarms.)

The pattern is available for $5.50 and will be delivered in PDF format.

Or if you are on Ravelry you can buy it here.

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Kyra Shawl – Knitting Pattern

Kyra has now been released!

Kyra shawl knitting pattern
Kyra shawl knitting pattern - full view

Kyra is a wide triangle shawl knit top down in a fingering weight yarn.

The pattern provides both charted and full written directions. There are also instructions on page 2 for knitting a Mini-Kyra so you can play with color choices before you actually CO for the real deal.

Final blocked measurements: 61” wide x 20.5” high (155cm x 52cm)

The pattern is available for $4.95 and will be delivered in PDF format.

Or if you are on Ravelry, here is a link to the pattern page: Kyra Shawl – Ravelry