Fair Isle & Stranded Colourwork

There is nothing quite as beautiful as moorland heather in bloom in a myriad of shades of purples and mauves. The flowers are a heathery mist across the landscape. Broad painterly sweeps of blue sky, green fields and heather carpeted moorland. Lichen encrusted rocks to sit on and enjoy a cup of tea together.

It’s great how effective a simple overall fair isle pattern can be in a pair of socks. The Fair Isle Zig Zag Socks are made using two contrasting sock yarns Seed Stitch Chart a dark purple Opal sock yarn and a lovely mottled purple/mauve sock yarn from my stash.[Read More]

I’ve always loved beach combing for sea glass. For years I searched on every beach that I visited and seldom found a piece of the elusive blue sea glass. Then after Bene came to live with us, we started visiting the tidal beach at Hazelbank. Bene loves the seaside. He loves to paddle and swim in the sea. He loves chasing his ball on the sand. He loves it on sunny days, overcast days, wet days, in hailstones, in snow. He just adores the beach. So walking on the beach has become a daily event every morning for us.

It was while we were walking on this beach that I spotted the first tiny piece of blue sea glass in amongst the pieces of mussel shell. It glinted in the light like a tiny sapphire gleaming in the sand.[Read More]

I love wandering along the beach picking up pieces of driftwood or bits of sea glass. It is so relaxing to walk on the beach in any weather. I feel a sense of calm when I sit and look out at the waves lapping on the shore and feeling the warmth of the sun on my face. On the day we were photographing these socks there wasn’t much sunshine. We didn’t have any shelter during the heavy showers and then we’d have a quick dry spell to try and take a few photos.

We brought a bag of sea glass with us to Crawfordsburn beach. I’ve seldom found blue or aqua coloured sea glass at this beach as there is mainly clear, green or brown scattered on the sand. Our sea glass comes from a tidal beach near to the old city landfill. There is nothing quite like the beauty of sea glass gleaming like jewels on the beach. It is gleaming all the more in these photos because of the showers.[Read More]

Who doesn’t love the lively combination of stripes and a touch of fair isle? One of my favourite combinations. Stripes have become a common theme in my sock knitting recently, but more about that in future posts! For the Fair Isle Swirl Socks the fair isle is worked as a wide stripe filled with an all over swirling two colour diagonal pattern. This is balanced by the wide dark stripe on the foot.

I chose two colours of Artesano Alpaca 4ply for the plain stripes as I liked how they contrasted with my main yarn choice. I have no idea how well the alpaca will wear so chose not to knit it on the heel or toe area where it would get a lot of heavy wear. The alpaca is a wonderfully soft warm yarn. The paler pink is Sweet Pea CA13 and the darker magenta is Venezuela 4345.[Read More]