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Half and Half Throw

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A Slow Journey Through Wool, Colour, and Memory

There’s something deeply comforting about reaching into your treasured wool collection, isn’t there? Each skein carries a memory, a promise, and sometimes, a spark of inspiration. That’s exactly what happened when I decided to cast on for Half and Half, a beautiful throw design by Sandi Rosner from Timeless Noro Knit Blankets.

At its heart, Half and Half is a joyful play between bold panels of colour, a design that honours the timeless art of knitting while inviting a fresh, vibrant flair. Originally worked in the lush hues of Noro Kureyon, it’s a pattern that lets the yarn do the talking, unfolding colours across simple garter stitch in a soothing, satisfying rhythm.[Read More]

Sofa Cover using the Addi Express Kingsize

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I’ve wanted to knit a cover for our sofa in the lounge for a long time. I’ve started a couple of times, but it was going to take forever and to be honest, I wanted to make it in time for the holidays. So, after watching a few vlogs on YouTube, I purchased the Addi Express Kingsize.

This was perhaps an ambitious first project on the knitting machine, and I did have to start again a couple of times when I was halfway through cranking a tube and accidentally dropped some stitches.

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Mitred Squares Cushion

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A few years ago, I made a Mitred Squares Cushion for my mother-in-law as a present. It was an enjoyable project using leftover sock yarns. As anyone who has been reading the posts on the Knitting Squirrel for a while will realise I love knitting socks And anyone who knits a lot of socks will know that there is always yarn leftover from these projects.

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Washcloths and Dishcloths

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Once upon a time, I’d look at a pattern for a dishcloth or washcloth and think, why would anyone want to knit a dishcloth? Don’t they have something more interesting that they’d like to knit?

Then, we had a pandemic and I found just watching the news became a stressful occupation. I needed something soothing to knit that didn’t require much thought. I found a couple of balls of Dishie that I’d ordered from Knitpicks a long time ago and I cast on a simple Gramma’s Dishcloth designed by PJ Allen. I ran out of Dishie.[Read More]

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]

How to Knit a Striped Blanket

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The Striped Blanket combines the simplicity of a strippy quilt with the busyness of leftover colourful sock yarns wonderfully well particularly when edged with the delicious Blueberry Bonbon contrast colour.

The construction of the Striped Blanket is elegantly simple as I wanted a project that I could easily carry with me and knit anywhere. This soft squishy garter stitch blanket fit the bill. [Read More]

Striped Blanket

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Today is Thursday, and tonight at 8 pm, we all thank the courageous and caring people who are at the coalface of this pandemic. Hearing the clapping of hands as people stand in their doorways and at their garden gates along with the Harland & Wolffe horns echoing across the city gives a glimmer of light in the dark and my thoughts turn to all those who have been touched in any way by these events.

How are you staying positive while you are staying safe at home?[Read More]

Beach Pebble Paperweight

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Just imagine… you’re sitting on Lettergesh Beach knitting a sock and the pages in my notebook keep fluttering over in the breeze. I was ready for a break from knitting socks… so what to do next?

I found myself lying back on the patchwork quilt to enjoy the warmth of the sun on my face. Sitting up, I pulled back the quilt, and dug a pebble out of the sand. It had been digging into my back in a rather uncomfortable way.

Pebble Paperweight

Eureka!

A fun idea had come into my mind. Knit a woolly pullover for a beach pebble… voila… a paperweight![Read More]

How to Knit a Mitred Square Blanket

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There are lots of different ways to knit a mitred square. This is how I knit my Mitred Square Blanket. I chose to use an analogous colour scheme of green, turquoise, teal, blue, purple, cerise as much as possible. Most of the yarns are either hand dyed: semi-solid, tonal, variegated, or commercial self patterning. A few other colours did creep in as part of a multi coloured variegated yarn or commercial sock yarn. These just add an extra sparkle to the finished blanket. I loved the tiny touches of orange, red, brown and zingy green.

Mitred Squares Blanket Pt3 5

This is a long post as I’ve taken lots of photos. I know that for many people I may go into too much detail, but I like to do the tutorial posts so that they will enable a beginner knitter to be able to do the project. This is actually a great project for a beginner as the mitred squares are easy to do.[Read More]

Cashmerino Aran Crochet Throw – Pt 1

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I’ve a very exciting holiday coming up this year. My mum and I are going on a road trip together around the Southern part of Ireland. It will be the first holiday that we have had together and I’m really looking forward to it. We have the cottages booked for a week in County Kerry and a week in Connemara.

I always love to have a few projects that I can photograph when I am on holiday. As I only have a few months before we go I decided that I’d like to crochet a throw for the trip.

Cashmerino Crochet Throw 2

I haven’t done any crochet for a long time, well not since I turned my granny square blanket project into a granny square scarf…[Read More]