Knitting and Crochet Blog Week - Post 7

(for more details, see Eskimimi Knits)

There’s one love that we all share: yarn. Blog about a particular yarn you have used in the past or own in your stash, or perhaps one that you covet from afar. If it is a yarn you have used you could show the project that you used it for, perhaps writing a mini ‘review’. Perhaps, instead, you pine for the feel of the almost mythical qiviut? You could explore and research the raw material and manufacturing process if you were feeling investigative.

I think the yarn I use most of - in number of projects certainly - is the sock yarn from Regia. It's a 75% wool/25% nylon mix to make it hardwearing, and it's nice and smooth to work with. But it's not the texture I love it for, it's the colours, especially in the Kaffe Fassett range. They are vivid and rich (mostly) without being too tacky and bright (again, mostly) and they make the funkiest socks which have kept my feet nice and snug during our "coldest winter for numpty nine years" ... I'm also quite keen on Opal sock yarn ... and - well, quite a few others, but for practically and enjoyment at a relatively reasonable price, it's the Regia for me...

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week - Post 6

(for more details, see Eskimimi Knits)
Bring the fortune and life of a past finished project up to the present. Document the current state and use of an object you have knitted or crocheted, whether it is the hat your sister wears to school almost every day, or a pair of socks you wore until they were full of hole. Or maybe that jumper that your did just didn’t like that much… 

These aren't anything special design-wise, or made from a a wonderful yarn, and they don't even match, but they get worn by my little niece every week to ballet class because "ballerinas wear legwarmers"- and because she loves them, and because "Auntie Nic-Nic made them 'specially for me".


Hopefully, my niece will never grow out of loving hand crafted stuff, and will never be too embarassed to wear hand knits!


And just because, here's a picture of her at the weekend at her fourth birthday party. The theme was "princesses and fairies" and there was so much polyester in the form of Disney dress up costumes that lighting the birthday candles  was even more closely supervised than usual!

From this, you can see why I chose the yarn I did for the leg warmers ;o)

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week - Post 5

(for more details, see Eskimimi Knits)

Where do you like to indulge in your craft? Is your favourite arm chair your little knitting cubby area, or do you prefer to ‘knit in public’? Do you like to crochet in the great outdoors, perhaps, or knit in the bath, or at the pub?

I'm the Martini Girl of knitting - "Any time, Any place, Any where". Well, okay, not the shower. Any probably a job interview wouldn't be appropriate either, but most other situations are fair game. I find it helps not only pass the time when doing something dull, like on the bus to the office, but it also helps when I'm doing something fun - I knit during our WI meetings, as it helps me concentrate on the speaker, and also makes talking to new people less hard. It's a good ice breaker, and it's often a way of having nice chats on the bus, especially with older people. Although conversations do tend to start off in the same way: "oooh, you don't see many people knitting nowadays, especially not young people like you..." - well, they are obviously not hanging out in either my social circle, or in blog land! Although it is nice to be classed as you :o)

The knitting group I'm part of meets in a pub, and we knit pretty much anywhere two or more of us are. We've even knitted on the "Sheffield Eye" ...

(I was more comfortable than my expression perhaps suggested!)

Knitting in the outdoors can be fun, and here is our knitting group on our retreat to York last year:

We're sat outside the Castle, I think we drew quite a lot of interested looks! I like this picture a lot, it's a reminder of a fab time!

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week - Post 4

(for more details, see Eskimimi Knits)

Is there a skill related to your hobby that you hope to learn one day? maybe you’re a crocheter who’d also like to knit? Maybe you’d like to learn to knit continental, knit backwards, try cables or attempt stranded colourwork.

Hmm - I think I covered this in post 2, when I should perhaps have talked more about a particular project. Anyway, it gives me a chance to make another confession. And one that may shock those readers than know me primarily as a cross stitcher.

Are you ready?

I can't follow knitting patterns that are written in chart format!

There, I've said it. I think some of it is cultural - charts used to be a very uncommon way of writing patterns in the UK, and so it is something I've never learned. Some of it I think is how my brain is wired - reading things in different directions and relating them to a two sided project ... it's just not like cross stitch! And thirdly - I am a reader. I like things to follow in a logical order, I can find my place in a written pattern easier than in a charted pattern, and I don't have to do a mental conversion. With cross stitch my poor brain can remember that a dot means a particular colour, but with knitting, if a dot is "purl on one side, knit on the other" by brain just goes "waaah!"

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week - Wildcard Topic

(for more details, see Eskimimi Knits)

Okay, so I'm behind - but I will do a series of seven Knitting and Crochet related posts anyway ... the long weekend will give me a bit of chance to catch up!

Do you have a particular knitting/crochet tool or piece of equipment that you love to use? Maybe it is an old bent pair of needles that used to belong to someone special, or a gorgeous rosewood hand-turned crochet hook that you just love the feel of? 

My most favourite pieces of equipment are my 2.50mm KnitPro double pointed sock needles. They are fabulous - so smooth, with nicely tapered points so they don't split the yarn, and the colours (they are made from dyed birch wood) just make my heart smile, and are very "me". They are a great talking point with other knitters. I do have to replace them from time to time, as I lose them occasionally - I don't hear them drop from my bag in the same way as I do metal needles. They are worth the little extra expense, as they get a lot of use, and having decent tools is part of the pleasure of executing any craft.

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week - Post 2

(for more details, see Eskimimi Knits)

An Inspirational Pattern
Blog about a pattern or project which you aspire to. Whether it happens to be because the skills needed are ones which you have not yet acquired, or just because it seems like a huge undertaking of time and dedication, most people feel they still have something to aspire to in their craft. If you don’t feel like you have any left of the mountain of learning yet to climb, say so!


The day I feel I don't have any of the mountain of learning yet to climb is the day I hang up my needles and whip myself with wet yarn, because nobody can ever know everything about their art or craft, and if I feel like I do, well I need taking down a peg or three.


It is only in the last couple of years I've mastered knitting on double pointed needles, and it's been fantastic learning how to knit socks. I'm still on the top downs, though - toe up is something I will try in the future, hopefully.

There are other techniques I still don't know how to do - casting on by the thumb method is one of the ones I want to learn, as is the long-tail cast on. Using two circulars is one I probably should know how to do but I'm not interested in, and Magic Loop seems as equally fiddly. I also need to figure out brioche stitch, as I think the way I hold my yarn is messing that up for me.

In terms of projects - part of me would like to knit a traditional Shetland shawl, and make it fine enough to go through a wedding ring but I know that I would never have any use for a shawl so fine, and nowhere to display it, so I do wonder what the point would be - they are traditionally used for Christenings and Weddings, neither events ae going to feature in my life! I'm not necessarily drawn to doing something "just because I can". Maybe a more practical weight  non-white Shetland style shawl will get made at some point?

And just because it is so cute, here's a Shetland sheep. Shetland sheep have very soft wool on their necks, and this was traditionally used for the finest cobweb yarns for shawls. The rest made wonderful, almost waterproof, clothing.

Click here to see other blogs tagged with knitcroblo2, blogging about this same topic for Knitting and Crochet Blog week. (May take a few hours to update on Google)

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week - Post 1

(for more details, see Eskimimi Knits)

How and when did you begin knitting/crocheting? was it a skill passed down through generations of your family, or something you learned from Knitting For Dummies? What or who made you pick up the needles/hook for the first time? Was it the celebrity knitting ‘trend’ or your great aunt Hilda?

I learned to knit very young, from my mum, who learned to knit from her mum, who learned to knit from her mum, who learned from her stepmother ... and so it goes. 

My mum was always doing something crafty when I was little - she made virtually all of our clothes - in the picture below, I'm five - it's probably around my birthday, my sister is a year younger, and we're both wearing jumpers my mum knitted - Sis has a hat my mum made, and my trousers are homemade too - blue Crimplene flares! (And those of you who have seen pictures of the Tot will notice the resemblance between her and her mum at the same age!)

Anyway, it was probably around the time this photo was taken that my mum taught me to knit. Back in the early 1970s, there wasn't a whole host of distractions for children in a family where there wasn't much money, and bad weather ruled out my swing, or seeing Mr Ward's bantam hens, or climbing the apple tree in Matthew Abdy's garden. Mum cast on thirty stitches - I could count to thirty - using some dishcloth cotton and size 7 needles (metric was very much in its infancy in the UK, it's still a stroppy teenager thirty years later, but I digress) and taught me how to knit by chanting "in, over, through and off". And I was away ... I managed to do a couple of rows of purl, too, and how to cast off. Casting on was a technique that took me a while to get - I had to learn a two needle cast on, as being left handed and taught by a right-y, the thumb method just wasn't going to work...

My Ma still calls me cack handed at knitting, she maintains I hold everything in a very awkward way, but that doesn't stop her asking me to knit her socks ... it's rather sweet that I'm now the one making stuff for my mother rather than the other way round. I still sometimes have to call on her to remind me how to do things if I'm away from my books, and it's great that I have this resource and connection to my family going way back because of a shared interest.


Click here to see other blogs tagged with knitcroblo1, blogging about this same topic for Knitting and Crochet Blog week. (May take a few hours to update on Google)