The final item

All those tiny knitted pieces were sewn onto knitted pages and then compiled into a book for Alfie Jack, my youngest grandchild. It is part of his
Christmas present so
i hope he likes it.

Did you guess?

have a look at these pictures to see what the bits and pieces became

Summer idleness

I was away for 2 months in the summer staying in our caravan so I did very little knitting or crochet except for..............
Look at the photos have you any idea what it/they might be?

using up the stash

I haven't posted anything on this spot for a while as I have been too busy knitting. I have now used up my stash of double knitting wool and as a result I have:
1 patchwork cushion cover, 1 purse, 1 stole, 2 tea cosies, 3 scarves and lots of baby stuff too comprising; 2 pram blankets, 1 hooded jacket, 2 waistcoats, 4 cardigan and bonnet sets, 1 pair of bootees and 4 hats. Of these I am very pleased with cushion cover. It uses different stitches as well as colours and the buttons are from my grandmother's button tin which I inherited many years ago - we've always been into recycling in our family.

I also found some baby aran wool from which I knitted 2 hat,scarf and mittens sets, 1 hat and another pair of mittens.

I'm now working through my 4 ply stash and as a change I've been crocheting a few items. You'll see those later.

cable confusion

I've been very busy for the last few weeks knitting and crocheting items from my stash of left over wool. I'll show you some of the items at another time but this afternoon I settled down to watch the semi finals of the snooker and start a new knitting project at the same time. 2 hours later it was 10 inches long but then I had to put down the knitting as the match became very intense and my fingers could knit any faster; the more excited I become the faster I knit.

I don't know if you can see from the photo but this is a garter stitch scarf with a herringbone cable design in the centre panel. I like cabling and really enjoy the challenge of aran jumpers etc but it was not always so. When I was 15 I decided to knit myself a jumper as I had a paper round then and could afford to buy the wool. I went to the local draper's shop and spent ages choosing a trendy pattern and some royal blue wool which I was allowed to buy on the lay by system as I could only afford 2 balls a week.

All went well until I reached the top part of the front. Then the pattern said I should C3B and also C3F. I didn't know what this meant so looked in the abbreviations section. It said cable 3 back and cable 3 forward which meant nothing to me. I was at a loss as to what to do. The only person I knew that could knit was my grandmother so I asked my mother to ask her mother what it meant when she visited her later in the week. No luck, gran could only knit socks so I was no further forward. I went and knocked on the front doors of some of our neighbours for help but although some of them knew what cabling was they didn't know how to create it. I went to the draper's shop and asked the owner but she said she couldn't knit at all which was abit of a let down and I couldn't ask my old teacher because she had retired and moved away.
I was in a quandary: I didn't want to pull the work down and do a different pattern and I couldn't afford to not use the wool. I studied the picture on the pattern carefully and eventually created what I now call a twisted chain stitch which ran vertically to the top of the jumper. I thought it looked great and wore my jumper proudly once it was finished. Lots of my friends admired it and I wore it regularly; it was my own design after all!

The first wonder

1. When I started at junior school my teacher was a lovely lady called Mrs Boam. One afternoon she gave everyone in the class a ball of string and two long, pointed pieces of wood, which she told us were called knitting needles. She showed us how by moving the wool around and through the needles we changed the ball of string into something totally different. Each Wednesday afternoon we would take out our string and needles and knit. I found this wonderful and within a few sessions I had a  - wait for it - dishcloth! I took it home to my mother but she didn't seem to appreciate its magic though i imagine she used it. The next week teacher gave me some slimmer, metal needles and 2 balls of soft wool. One ball was dark blue the other yellow as these were our school colours. I was very proud as I was the first in the class to be given these precious items. The dishcloth only need ed garter stitch but now I was introduced to double rib, purl and stocking stitch. Not only that but I was taught to shape my work by increasing and decreasing the number of stiches on my needle. After a time I was also shown how to sew up my work and I was delighted to wear the finished work - a pair of mittens with seperate thumbs. I wore them whenever it was cold until they wore out. When i finished the mittens I was asked by the teacher if i would like to knit a dress for my doll. Would I??? i brought the doll into school as requested and by the summer she had a pale green dress with holes around the waist where I threaded a ribbon as a sash. It had a round neck, puff sleeves and a garter stich hem. I also knitted a pair of knickers to match with elastic threaded through. I kept the doll and her outfil until my 30's when she got lost in a house move I think.

Thanks to Mrs Boam I have a skill which still gives me a lot of pleasure.