No mess to report

April Fool!! Actually there's lots of mess as always.



Some of it due to that fact that when I get home from work or running I just don't feel like doing housework, some due to the fact that doing laundry in the evenings is not terribly neighbourly (the spin cycle makes a heck of a racket) and some of a more longstanding nature.



The sock drawer has been on its last legs for some time now. I haven't been able to shut it in ages as the bottom is sagging due to overloading and last week the front came off at one side. The overloading is due to the fact that despite having a dozen plus pairs of lovely hand knit socks I still haven't cut the cord and put out the cotton ones for recycling.

Of course some of the mess is due to the fact that I've been doing some lovely knitting instead of the washing up.

I'm racing along on the second Sheep Yoke Baby Cardigan - the bottom ribbing is nearly done.



This one is looking even better than the first (practice making perfect). The flowers look rather neater done in stranded knitting rather than duplicate stitch and the intarsia sheep worked out great, although darning in the ends did seem to take forever.



I'm having serious thoughts about a grown-up version for myself. I just need to decide what yarn. I have 10 balls of Wensleydale Longwool 4 ply in suitably sheepy colours but I do have a hankering for a natural shades chunky version. I think that the maths would be easier (although I'm not quite naive enough to think I can upsize just by knitting the baby version on bigger needles!) and Sirdar have a reasonably inexpensive single ply in just the right shades of sheep.

Sheep Yoke Baby Cardigan - FO

Pattern: Sheep Yoke Baby Cardigan by Jennifer Little of Looking Glass Knits
Size: 3-6 months
Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool DK. 1 and a half balls in main shade, less than half a ball in each contrast colour.
Ravelled here

I loved knitting this so much. The pattern is really easy to follow (even if like me it's your first yoked sweater) and the sheep are just so cute. I really like the yarn as well - it's good and squidgy with nice stitch definition. It makes a great substitute for the recommended yarn for us Brits who can't get hold of Knitpicks (and it's only £3.25 a ball too).



I made only a couple of modifications. The flowers are done in duplicate stitch because I didn't notice the note to ignore the pattern repeat for those rows and I couldn't quite handle working out both that and the yoke increases on the train. The sleeves are knit in the round (because I'm lazy when it comes to seaming) and so I had to make a couple of late decreases at the cuff so that the ribbing worked out. Next time (and there definitely is going to be a next time) I'll make 4 sets of decreases down the arm to make it a bit neater. Oh, and I knit the sheep with their heads turned towards the camera rather than looking straight at the button band but that's just because I omitted to print out the duplicate stitch chart so had to make my best guess from the photo. I quite like them like that though.



If you liked that ...



Sheep Yoke Baby Cardigan #2 is already on the needles. I'm knitting the sheep section in intarsia this time around as I don't really like working with floats that are too long to leave loose. This is my first time working intarsia. Someone please remind me to invest in some bobbins next time round.

Baaaa!

The Sheep Yoke Baby Cardigan is still racing along. I've finished the yoke and am onto the main body. Of course this means about 5 inches of solid stocking stitch so I've been breaking it up by doing some of the sheep embroidery. I'm using the yarn held double to give a good solid effect.

I was a little worried in the shop about whether the blue and green were a bit bright but I'm very pleased with the effect now. I think that they work really well together in lifting the main colour.

I'm also less concerned about the leftovers now - apparently there's a matching hat!

Messy Tuesdays - week 2

This week I present the somewhat unedifying spectacle of my yarn and fabric stash. The yarn should be living (safe from dust and moths) in the plastic boxes stacked to the right of the photo. The fabric stash is too recent for me to have actually devised a storage solution. The problem with this (aside from the fact that it reduces my leverage when trying to get my boyfriend to tidy up his mess) is that WIPs and UFOs are mixed up with abandoned half projects, project stash (i.e. yarn for which I have a purpose) and odds and ends of balls meaning that I have to search through five different places to find anything.

The point of Messy Tuesdays as I see it, is not really to glorify the mess but rather to acknowledge its existence as a result of choosing to do something else than tidying with one's time.

Hence, more progress on the Sheep Yoke Baby Cardigan.



I've just got 4 rows of yoke to knit before dividing for the body and sleeves and it looks like I'll have plenty for the second one. Plus a lot more odds and ends to add to the pile above!

An embarrassment of stitches

Mum and I had a lovely time together yesterday knitting and watching the footy. Mum raced through the beret and was dismayed to realise that she still had a good half ball of chocolate cashmerino aran left over *. She thought this would work well as a stripe or edging on a cardigan and I, in accordance of “gently encouraging”** her to get back into knitting, sorted her out with a pattern for a raglan baby cardigan to match her yarn and needles which I’ve adapted from the raglan baby sweater in The Baby Knits Book. Hopefully I haven’t made any dreadful errors in adapting it but I’ll be on the end of the phone for one to one pattern support at least!

Whilst looking through Ravelry for something for Mum to knit for baby with the leftovers I came across something for me too. That is, something for me to knit for the baby, although I wouldn’t say no to an adult version of this.

It’s the Sheep Yoke Baby Cardigan by Jennifer Little and it’s just gorgeous. You can see all the different versions knitted so far here on Ravelry. A few people are knitting it without the sheep which I don’t quite get, but then I do love sheep.

I’m using Rowan Pure Wool DK (which is very nice) indeed and I’m knitting a variant between the boys’ and girls’ versions - no pink (sadly the shade of pink that I loved was only available in 4 ply) but including the flowers.

I cast on on the train (luckily I got gauge right away with my 3.75 mm needles - the only pair of needles I had with me) and made pretty good progress although I soon realised that I didn’t have quite enough stitch markers to mark all the pattern repeats. Fortunately I was able to make up the shortfall with jewellery:



The next slight snag came when I realised that the yoke increases meant I was going to run out of space on my 20 cm needles by the time I reached the sheep.



Eek. I managed to keep on knitting though it was a tight squeeze on there by the time I got home.

I’ve made on tiny modification to the pattern so far in that I decided to stitch the flowers on later using duplicate stitch rather than knitting them as the printed chart doesn’t take the repeat into account and I really didn’t feel like working it out on the train, especially as that’s one of the increase rows. [Edited 25/03/2008] Oops! That's my bad. There is in fact a very clear note in the pattern pointing out that you should ignore the repeat for the flowers and just knit them as printed right across. D'oh! Still, I think that with my colourwork skills duplicate stitch will turn out much neater!

* The beret itself was a project using leftovers from the moss stitch baby blanket . She hasn’t sussed yet that there’s always yarn left over – that’s how you get stash!

** If by “gentle encouragement” you mean bringing two knitting books up from Oxford, re-writing a baby sweater pattern as a raglan cardigan and getting Mum to drive us both to John Lewis this morning.

I got sunshine, I got blue sky..

..and not only in my yarn, as we were treated to a white Easter with clear skies and sparkling snow up here in the semi-freddo north! Alas I haven't been able to venture out as I'm still hoping that I can coddle myself out of my cold before visiting the niece on Thursday, thus avoiding the embarrassment of being the only one in a face mask. Luckily she's too young to be scarred for life!



I would also have a finished objects post about the lace edge cardigan but my blocking photo turned out really poorly (as in you can't even see the lilac towel it's sitting on). Never mind, maybe we'll get model shots after my visit!

In the meantime I have two skeins of Oxford Kitchen Yarns yarn in DK weight to play with. It's for (yet another) secret project so I can't say much more, but I'm having lots of fun messing around with stitch patterns in this lovely yarn.

I brought both Debbie Bliss knitting books up north with me to see if there were any patterns that Mum could knit with her leftover Cashmerino Aran from the baby blanket. There's a little under two balls so it looks like all of the cardigans and sweaters are out but there's a really cute beret in Simply Baby which she's just casting on for*. I must just say how much I love this book. The patterns are beautiful and the photography is gorgeous, as are the babies! I didn't buy it myself (it was a present) but it easily meets the criteria of having four patterns (and more) that I want to knit.

* in fact she just came in now for a quick lesson in the long-tail cast-on.

Tuesdays are messy

This natural mug formation was recorded near the sink in our kitchen on Tuesday evening. This impressive spectacle is formed by continuous droplets of tea or coffee being drunk during the day and adding by increments to the height of the tower. If left indefinitely it is possible for these formations to reach as high as the ceiling of their cave kitchen.

Messy Tuesdays are brought to you by Knitaluscious and Knitwit.

Progress on the Lace Edge cardigan is continuing apace. I'm now finished on the first sleeve and have picked up the stitches for the second. The sleeve shaping has strayed slightly from the pattern after I got a bit carried away in knitting round before deciding to actually work out how many I should knit before beginning the shaping but it doesn't seem to have affected the overall shape too badly.



Second sleeve should be finished tomorrow, then I can get started on the exciting lace edging.

FO - Sally

Pattern: "Sally" from JB29 by Martin Storey
Yarn: Jaeger Matchmaker Merino 4 ply
Needles: 3mm; 2.75mm circs
Ravelled here

I'm so pleased with the way that this has turned out, especially as I rather lost confidence in it whilst knitting the fronts due to the trickiness of combining colourwork and shaping in a neat and tidy fashion. Happily seaming and picking up stitches for the front and neck edging seems to have secured all the dodgy bits. I'm pretty sure my sister will like it and I'm certain that she'll love the buttons which are even cuter than the bee ones on baby's purple cardigan (now sadly outgrown).

One of the reasons I'm so pleased to have finished Sally is that I promised myself that I wouldn't cast on the next baby cardigan until it was done. As soon as the last little sheep button was stitched firmly in place I picked up my needles and yarn and cast on for the Lace Edge Cardigan from Simply Baby by Debbie Bliss. Debbie really doesn't go in for the poetic names for her patterns which is maybe just as well as you've got to wonder at the thinking behind giving instructions for boys and girls button bands for a cardigan pattern entitled "Sally"!



(yeess - that didn't really turn out as well as I'd hoped. I'll take more pics in better light soon.)

I've been wanting to knit this for ages now as the lace edging looked particularly exciting. However, for a while it really did seem like a case of the grass looking greener on the other side as I found myself plunged into a garter stitch black hole for at least two hours this afternoon. I have now, though, emerged safe and sound on the event horizon with one of the "fronts" complete and halfway through the back. I'll see how it goes but I'm suspecting that it might be a cunning plan to pick up stitches at the armholes and knit the sleeves downwards. I'm really much better at picking up stitches than at sewing on sleeves! I might even knit them in the round once I've got past the point where they are joined to the underarm.

I'll post something about our lovely holiday in Prague just as soon as I've sorted out the photos (I got rather snap happy). In the meantime here's what I was knitting whilst on holiday.



Thelonious socks by Cookie A. in Louet Gems Opal. I love both the yarn and the pattern and I'm racing along on the first sock. I've had a great idea for adapting the pattern too in order to make symmetrical left and right socks but at this stage it would involve a fair bit of ripping back. "To rip or not to rip?", that is the question.

Des boutons moutons

Aren't these sweet?



Last Wednesday evening I dashed across town after getting back from seeing my niece to see if the knitters were still in the pub. They were and I was rewarded for my efforts with these lovely buttons from Kirsty.

Not only are they incredibly cute, they're also very timely as I've finally knitted all the pieces for the Sally baby cardigan and the sheep buttons will match perfectly.



The observant amongst you might notice that I've cheated a bit on the sleeves which are knit plain rather than in the pattern. This was done for two very pragmatic reasons: firstly babies have very little fingers which tend to get caught in anything loopy when you're dressing them; secondly (and this was the clincher) I found knitting the pattern and shaping at the same time really quite awkward and stressful as I just couldn't get the edges as neat as I'd like and there were lots of loose stitches. The thought of knitting two more pieces like that was just too much to contemplate. I think it will still look great with plain sleeves though.

The cardigan is now blocking ready to be finished up when I get back. In fact, I suppose I could even take it on holiday with me and finish it on the plane. Does anyone know if BA objects to yarn needles!?!

FO - lengthways garter stitch scarf

This turned out to be a record time quick knit. A bit of knitting on Friday evening, a bit on Saturday morning on the bus and waiting for the train and a bit more on Saturday evening in front of the telly and it was done. I blocked it overnight, which can be a risky strategy resulting in impromptu acupuncture of the feet, especially in an unfamiliar room, and fixed the tassels on first thing this morning.

Sadly, it didn't end up any wider despite best best attempts, but it's definitely longer and really it's so thick that the skinniness isn't an issue.



I love how the thick and thin bits in the yarn have formed diagonal stripes.

Given how well this has turned out I now have plans to rip out a bulky weight cardigan in Rowan Big Wool which has been attracting moths* in my wardrobe for far too long (it's boxy and it flares and the buttons won't stay buttoned) and cannibalise it for more scarves. The yarn was really far too expensive not to get worn.

Did I mention that I visited the bead shop on Saturday?



Despite all the lovelies on offer I managed to restrict myself to the smaller (and cheaper) beads (at 30-65p a shot these things can really add up) and some more jump rings. I'm just kicking myself that I didn't bring my pins and round-nosed pliers up here with me - still it's something to look forward to when I get home!

* Before I get put into quarantine I should stress that these are metaphorical moths.

Dewi Sant

In honour of St. David's day we have daffodils and a poem.



Daffodils by William Wordsworth (1804)

I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

I still love this poem even after seeing it endlessly repeated in fancy type on countless picture postcards featuring views of Ullswater or Grasmere and, indeed, even though I always think straight after of the Beano parody which featured Plug of the Bash Street Kids and went something like this:


I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
The reason is I've skipped off school
Pretending that I'm ill.

I snapped these, not beside a lake, but in the grounds of Magdalen College (I managed to crop out the tossed away kebab van containers that lay amongst them - don't you just love Oxford students?) as I was heading to the local bead emporium after the boyfriend's degree ceremony in the morning.



The boyfriend is now officially D.Phil'd - although if he thinks I'm addressing him as "doctor" he's got another think coming, there's only one Doctor as far as I'm concerned.

Happily Bluestocking Ruth was also getting her MSt. at the same ceremony so I could support her too.



Enough of all this. "Where's the knitting content?" I hear you cry. Well I made really good prgress on the secret project today on my somewhat stressful journey up north (at one point it took the combined powers of June Whitfield as Miss Marple on the ipod, the Yarn Harlot in book form, and my knitting to keep me sane) but secret projects don't really make for good blog fodder. Let me give you a sample:

Well I ______ed the ______ before _______ing the ________ and _____ing the ______. Then I ______ed the ______ and _______ed in the _____ _____s and I was really happy with the result. Here's a pic ... no, sorry, can't show you that either.

Luckily for you I cast on a lengthwise garter stitch scarf last night with the fancy Italian yarn that the boyfriend's sister gave me for Christmas. Ever since I learnt how to do the long-tail cast-on for Tatami I've been looking everywhere for excuses to use it and a project which involved casting on 100* stitches in bulky yarn of variable thickness on 10mm needles seemed as ideal candidate.



I knit 12 rows in garter stitch and then cast off with the EZ sewn bind-off (fortunately the thin bit of the yarn is just thin enough for my big darning needle). The result, pre-block, is a skinny scarf, just long enough to go twice around my neck and tie in a knot leaving two short tails. Tomorrow I'll be blocking it (hopefully wider and a bit longer) and adding tassels (yay).

* This was pure luck! I cast on stitches until I ran out of yarn and needle and by some freak it worked out at 100.

Blue moon and stars

Just a quick post to show off my first foray into the murky world of stitch markers.



R and I went to see The Magic Flute at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. It was a fabulous production: great singing, wonderful set and costume design and a big snake - what's not to like?

Anyway, I picked up the beads and fixings for these markers at Bead Aura in Neal's Yard on the way to the opera house. I wish I could say that they were inspired by the Queen of the Night but I just liked the colours!

I've not posted for a little while, but it's not been for lack of knitting or stitching. In fact I've been very busy on a secret project with the STR lightweight that I bought from Christine.



Can you tell what it is yet? Of course you can't, it is a secret project after all.

Mental block

I've been itching to get started cutting and sewing Felix's fabric since she gave it to me last Wednesday but first there was another little job I had to do:



This is Katie's needle roll in the fabulous cupcake fabric. I'm getting more and moe confident with the quilting foot and I'm pretty pleased with how the quilting on this turned out.



It's basically a large zig-zag with the lines of stitching about 1 cm apart and a few places where it goes off at a tangent.

Once i got let loose on Felix's parcel I decided on a basic snowball quilt using the oak leaves and the darker green gingham for the corners and the other six colours for the "snowballs". Sadly, despite spending a lot of time and paper doodling out different quilt designs and making calculations I still managed to balls it up rather as I somehow managed to misunderestimate by half how many corner squares I would need. It's not a crisis but it does mean that my squares aren't quit based on a nine patch block and that piecing them is a little bit trickier.



Still, the first eight seem to have gone OK.

Stained Glass Quilt

I finished off the quilt top on Saturday morning and couldn't resist pinning it up against the window to show off the colours. I'm going to finish it off with a border in either the red or dark green and a back in the cream to show off the quilting. It's just going to be a lap quilt with a finished size of probably 36" by 56" and should be lovely and bright for the spring.

Whilst the quilt top looks pretty impressive I'm conscious that behind the scenes (or seams if you like) it could be neater and there are some fairly fudgy spots. However, I'm on the learning curve and I've learnt a few useful lessons for my next attempt such as the larger the individual pieces the easier (and quicker) it is and that less than a quarter-inch seam allowance is not a good idea.

Serendipity

Finally I get to show off the great fabric I got at Hobbycraft at the weekend. It's been under wraps till now as I used it to make a needle case for Lara's birthday present and I wanted it to be a surprise.



I bought quarter metres of the three fabrics plus another metre of the cupcake print for Felix as I was pretty sure she'd love it. My hunch was confirmed when she turned up having bought the very same fabric herself (also from Hobbycraft) to wrap up her own present for Lara (Felix has revolutionary ideas about wrapping paper which I may be adopting).

The Twighlight Zone vibe just got more intense as Felix presented me with my own beautifully wrapped parcel just as I was saying how I nearly bought this great cabbage print fabric and how I still really wantesd it.





Lo and behold, the very same was in my parcel (second from the left). I'm going to have so much fun making these up into a spring garden-y type of quilt, maybe with strips like Jane Brocket's Allotment quilt or a simple log cabin. I really enjoyed making the star blocks over Christmas for my current on the go quilt project but they are a bit labour intensive and I'd like something a little more relaxing (and with a little less ironing!)

Talking of which...



There's nothing like either a) the successful conclusion of a project or b) new stash to fill you with enthusiasm so it was small wonder that I got out the sewing machine when I got home and got piecing.

There are now 16 completed blocks sewn together and I think I need 8 more (which are cut out but not yet pieced) to make a decent sized top. A job for the weekend I think.

Early Valentine!

My Socks That Rock lightweight arrived in the mail this morning from Christine along with a really cute little tag and some heart-shaped chocolates.



Between the light and the not-so-great camera phone picture this is not a representative picture of the colour of this yarn. The colourway is Blue Moonstone and it's kind of a sky blue/bluey-grey with some undyed patches. I know it must have been a bit of a wrench for Christine to part with this (just remember it's in a good cause!) but I can assure her that it's gone to a good home, there'll be lots of other sock yarn to keep it company and I have big plans for this little skein - it's going to look so pretty knit up.

I'm nearly through the first ball in my Tatami - once I've finished the first ball I'll try to do some knitting maths to check whether I'll have enough yarn to complete. I really should do, given that I'm knitting to gauge and the yarn I'm using has a longer yardage than the recommended yarn. I'm (not actually sure how that squares with the fact that I had to go down two needle sizes to get gauge but I guess it will all work out). I'm up to the second lot of side decreases anyway. Tatami looks like a huge project (especially if you knit a giant one like Felix) but the extra width gained from the drop stitches means that your rows are much shorter than for a conventional cardi (yay) so at the moment it seems to be motoring. This is partly helped by the fact that I've made one slight adjustment to the pattern and am knitting, rather than purling, my drop stitches - so much faster. I can't see that it will make too much difference to the overall size (I swatched the other way!) but am perfectly prepared to listen to arguments to the contrary and/or be struck down by the knitting gods for my hubris.

Birthday yarn cakes

Yesterday was "our* birthday"! Number three on the list of reactions I get when I tell people I have a twin brother after "are you identical" and "do you know what the other one is thinking" (to which the respective answers are "no" and "actually sometimes yes") is "too bad you have to share your birthday". In fact I love sharing my birthday with my twin. When we were growing up the fact that it was the birthday of 2 out of 5 of our family made it much more special a day - to the extent that my elder sister had to be bought a consolation present to make up for the fact that all the other kids (me and Ste) were getting spoilt rotten.

The "spoiling rotten" still seems to be going on (in the yarn department at any rate). In the midst of many other pressies (including the ultimate gift of M&S** knickers) was a bag of enough hand-dyed Blue-faced Leicester in DK (above) from Oxford Kitchen Yarns to knit a Tatami. The colourway is Latte/Biscuit and is a special order from Katie as she thought (having knit one herself) that Tatami would look much better in a variegated yarn than a more or less solid. The colour is ridiculously caffiaceous - so much so that I want to lick the yarn because I'm convinced it will taste like coffee icing!

On top of that, Katie turned up at the pub on Wednesday bearing a gift of hand-spun, hand-dyed Blue-faced Leicester as a gift from herself and Lara.



This stuff is truly special. It's spun and dyed by Heike whose etsy shop you can find at All the Pretty Fibers and it's the softest, squooshiest yarn you can imagine. I'm keeping it in the skein just to pet for a while!

Finally a work-in-progress. I'm having a bit of a blitz on socks at the moment as I've noticed that a couple of my pairs are wearing through at the heel (I'm going to have a go at reinforcing them of course but I'm not sure how well that will work). The latest pair are just some very simple toe-up blue socks knit from some leftover denim regia of Aliki's which I got at the yarn swap with heels and cuffs in slightly lighter leftover denim regia from my own stash.



They are knit with a gusset and heel-flap and (inspired by Cat Bordhi) the gusset increases are created by the yarn-overs in the simple lace chevron which then carries on (in a purely decorative function) up the leg.

* me and my twin brother.

** to the Americans - M&S stands for Marks and Spencer and is very, very different from ess & emm.

Destashing for a good cause

A quick update.

Christine over at threedogknits is asking you to buy her yarn to help fund hew trip to New Orleans where she will be doing some volunteer work for the National Trust for Historic Presevation to help restore an older house in a low income area of the city. She does have some lovely stuff and it is in a good cause (or at least that's my excuse for breaking my yarn diet!).

Fearful symmetry*

It's a bit late for the silent poetry reading but for your literary edification I present:

The Tyger by William Blake (1794)

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

There are 4 other verses (plus the first one repeated) but the first is the best. Reading the poem reminded me of a favourite childhood series of books by Willard Price (in particular Tiger Adventure). Perhaps Willard Price isn't quite up there with William Blake in the literary stakes (although he probably knew a damn sight more about tigers) but he does a similarly great job of showing the beauty and danger of these animals in the wild and he's right up there with David Attenborough in giving me a love of natural history.

From tiger hunting onto the equally hazardous occupation of pancake tossing.







No action shots of pancake tossing sadly as I'm in on my own this evening and self-portraiture does have its limits! Never mind, all the more pancakes for me.

* Or at least rotational symmetry.

You make my day!

Slightly belated I know but I found this half written post in my drafts and thought I'd finish it off.

1) The Oxford Bluestockings - aka Abstar's World, Knitaluscious, The Frog Princess, KnitWit, Mootthings, Oxford Kitchen Yarns and Practical Polly: Despite seeing these girls at least once a week I love being able to catch up on all their knittings and doings via their blogs and I always get very excited when one of them turns up modelling an FO that I'd only previously seen on the blog.

2) Second only due to the fact that blood is thicker than water - the Yarn Harlot. I know that every second knitter out there will also have nominated Stephanie Pearl McPhee so I'm not telling you anything new but the woman is hilarious. Yarn Harlot is the first blog I check out in the mornings and if there's a new post it always makes for a great start to the day. Her knitting is pretty great too.

3) I adore Knitspot. Anne Hanson's designs are bee-yew-tiful (check out this, and this, and these, oh and this!) She always seems to have something new either on her needles or her stove to admire.

4) The Panopticon is where I head for great writing, gorgeous lace knitting, fun cartoons and bitchy comments from chain smoking sheep. Love this blog!

5) Cast-On a podcast for knitters is hosted by Brenda Dayne. Brenda is a great writer and knitter and her voice is as relaxing as a long, hot bath. Her podcasts have got me through more stressful train delays than I care to remember.

6) Slipped Stitch (or Kirsty's Flatmate Alice's blog as I usualy refer to it) is another favourite. Her designs are lovely and quirky and her posts have a nice mix of knit content and other topics.

5) Jared of Brooklyn Tweed is a photographer as well as a knitter and it shows. I only wish I could get my knits to look that good! He spins and designs too and is always willing to respond to queries about the things he's knitted.

6) My Fashionable Life was the first knit blog I started reading. Anna isn't posting so frequently at the moment due to her latest FO (Stanley John Alexander) but her patterns (for free and to buy) are linked to from her site.


9) Librivox is a volunteer organisation which creates audiobooks recordings of works in the public domain. Their catalogue is constantly growing and already contains hundreds of classic works from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.

10) Strange maps is not a knit blog but it's always good for a laugh and some interesting cartographic trivia. This is one of my favourites.

Thanks everyone!