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Habitation Throw

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The Habitation Throw is a delight to knit and if you’re looking for a fun, quick blanket project using 4ply or sock yarn I’d definitely encourage you to make it. It is the perfect pattern if you haven’t knit a blanket before.

The colour wheel of 12 colours was hand-dyed by me. I wanted to find a way of using one of my hand-dyed colour wheels and the Habitation Throw designed by Helen Stewart seemed ideal. The Habitation Throw is an elegantly simple design. It was released as part of Curious Handmade’s Knitvent 2019.[Read More]

A Small World

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2021 did not start in the way that I had planned.

“To a Mouse” by Robert Burns

“The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain
For promis’d joy!”

I’ve recently put new yarns and beautiful Emma Ball project bags into the Knitting Squirrel Shop. I love these bags, they are colourful and fun as well as being the perfect size for a project. I used my Woolly Puffins Drawstring Project Bag when I was knitting the “Boxy” sweater designed by Joji Locatelli.

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Knit the Season

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Over the holidays, Dakota Walker has a number of important decisions to make as she tries to figure out what she wants from her life, in Knit the Season by Kate Jacobs.

Dakota has dreamed of becoming a pastry chef since, as a child, she baked for her Mum and the ladies in the Friday Night Knitting Club.  Now in NYU, her big break has finally come in the shape of a trial at New York’s famous V hotel kitchen over Christmas.  She has pre-cooked her father, James’, Christmas meal so she has everything arranged.  What could go wrong?[Read More]

Handmade Journals

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What do you do when you decide in mid-October that you will knit some of the Christmas gifts for your nearest and dearest?

Do you decide on a hat, fingerless mitts or a cowl? I assume you have the good sense not to embark on knitting lap blankets…

But knitting blankets involves a lot of time sitting. I could have watched TV, Netflix, or my usual favourite knitting podcasts. But I came across Pam at The Paper Outpost vlog on YouTube. I was inspired. Oh yes, I fell down another crafting rabbit hole… hook, line and sinker…[Read More]

Virtual Shetland Wool Week 2020

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A long-held dream of mine is to attend Shetland Wool Week.

Neil and I visited Shetland in 2015 in early September to celebrate our 50th birthdays and our Wedding Anniversary. Gosh, there is so much to love about Shetland, the ponies, the sheep, the amazing scenery, the glorious colours of wool and the most delicious Fish & Chips you will eat anywhere!

Shetland Colour Inspiration 15

It was wonderful and often places we visited were busy gearing up for Shetland Wool Week starting a week or so later… [Read More]

Bullet Journalling

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I’ve been journalling for a long, long time.

I’ve kept planners, diaries, journals, art journals and sketchpads. I came to journalling from an artistic background, so my first choice was working on sketchpads and then combining the artistic form with my journal. My use of journalling, therefore, has to also take into consideration my creativity and inspiration.

This has always meant that I need to have more than one journal going at any one time.[Read More]

Spinning

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2020 has been a strange year so far for all of us. We’ve spent months in lockdown. We have just moved back home after spending lockdown with my mum. And I’ve come to the realisation that sometimes, we need to follow our dreams and I’ve finally allowed myself to succumb to my yearning to learn to spin.

After all, it is good for us to stretch our minds and to learn a new skill. It is strange to become a beginner again, to remind myself of how difficult it is to achieve mastery of a new craft and the excitement that comes with learning something new.[Read More]

A Turn in the Road

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Bethanne Hamlin has a life-changing decision to make, on a road trip of a lifetime across America with her daughter and her ex-Mother-in-law, in A Turn in the Road by Debbie Macomber.

Bethanne was devastated when, after a twenty-year marriage, her husband Grant left her for a younger woman.  As a sort of therapy, she joined a knitting group at Lydia Goetz’ yarn store, A Good Yarn.  Gradually she was able to pick herself up – largely from the friendships she made in the knitting group.  She started her own business called Parties.  And now, six years later, she is a changed woman and her business is flourishing.  However, Grant has contacted Bethanne again as he wants to give their marriage a second chance. [Read More]

Sipila Sweater

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When I saw the Sipila sweater designed by Caitlin Hunter of Boyland Knitworks I knew I was going to cast on. I bought the pattern as soon as it appeared on Ravelry. I love Caitlin Hunter’s designs and have knit several of them.

I love almost everything about this sweater. The colour combination is glorious. The colourwork pattern is perfection. The style of the sweater is everything I could have hoped for.[Read More]

Dying in the Wool

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When Kate Shackleton’s friend Tabitha asks her to investigate her father’s disappearance from a small Yorkshire village, scandalous secrets are uncovered and Kate’s life is put in danger, in Dying in the Wool by Frances Brody.

Kate Shackleton is an independent 31-year-old who was a volunteer nurse during World War I.  She is as clever as she is elegant and has sufficient means to choose how she lives her life, which was rare for single women in 1920’s England. [Read More]