The ravelry pattern Damask by Kitman Figueroa has been in my queue for as long as I can remember. I’d always presumed it was too complicated for me – well I’ve got news – despite it’s intricate and complex looking nature this pattern is so well written even a beginner could master it.

Having pointed out the pattern to my good friend Martine of iMake fame (www.iMake.gg) and our friend Kate we decided a KAL would be a great start to the year to get us motivated and wash away the winter blues.

The KAL is open to all and details can be found on the iMake Ravelry thread here, and Martine’s blog here as well as twitter updates by myself, Martine and Kate using the hashtag #damaskkal.

Anyway to get you started I thought I’d do a Shoe’s top tips with some handy hints for the pattern:

Shoe’s Top Ten Damask KAL Tips.

1. 1. Buy the pattern! I know it’s tempting to get a friend to email you a copy but these wonderful pattern makers can only carry on if we support them. This pattern is well worth the US$5 you pay for it – exceptionally well written!
   2. Stitch mark, stitch mark, stitch mark! The pattern calls for you to stitch mark the center stitch, but I found it really helpful to mark the 18 stitch repeats as well. I just simple 10mm jewlery jump rings as markers, very cheap and you don’t mind if you drop one on the train (like I did yesterday!)
   3. Counting! After each repeat – make sure you have 18 stitches between your markers, I know it sounds silly and time consuming but this will save you having to un-knit an entire WS row when you realise you’ve missed a YO.
   4. Get your YO right!there are some Knit -YO -Purl and Purl -YO – Knit combos in there and the WS can be tricky if you don’t get these right. The best way I found was:
      1. K-YO-P. Knit, bring yarn to front as if to do a normal YO, then over the needle to the back and then bring to the front again (giving you a nice loop)
      2. P-YO-K. Purl, then just simply knit without taking your yarn to the right side (the kind of YO you do when you simply aren’t concentrating!
      3. It sounds like they won’t be even but mine looked fine!
   5. Tick off the pattern! Make sure you keep a note of what row you’re on, and I found it helpful to put a post-it under the line I was doing to make sure I didn’t inadvertently start knitting the row before/after (yes I’m that silly!)
   6. Have you got enough Yarn? I used 4mm needles, the medium pattern and consider myself to be a relatively loose knitter – I had 7g left from a 100g skein so plenty to be sure you’ll get it out of a skein.
   7. Nupp-away. Some people have taken the 7stitch nupps out of the pattern and replaced with a simple Knit stitch but I think they look lovely so make the time if you can. Make sure when you’re knitting them you keep the yarn nice and loose and be prepared for those WS rows to be a bit trickier!
   8. Look out for the odd ones! Some of the WS rows are different, make sure you keep your eye out for these.
   9. Use a life line: If you’re new to lace knitting you may want to put in a “life line” every now and then. This is basically a strand of different coloured yarn thread through the knitting so if you make a mistake you don’t have to go back to the beginning. Type Knitting lifeline into YouTube if you’re confused.
   10. ENJOY! It is a lovely pattern, which was complicated enough to keep me entertained but not too complicated that I couldn’t do it in front of the TV. You won’t be disappointed.

   Really hope you can join us, let me know if you would like more details.

   lots of love and hugs

   Shoe

   xxxxxx

Being a poor student funds are a bit tight this time of year so I thought I’d venture into the handmade for Christmas. Having finished off a few knitted bits (which I’m not going to put on here just yet) I ventured into the “food” area and decided to make some Chutney.

BBC Good Food online had some great recipes so I chose two chutneys which had good reviews and not too many ingredients (don’t you hate it when you have to buy and entire jar of fennel seeds when you only need a teaspoons worth!), the apple and cranberry chutney and the red onion marmalade. I read the comments and suggestions from people who’d used the recipes and decided they were within my capability and made a few adjustments to the recipes, including halving both the quantities or I’d have had chutney coming out of my ears.

So off I toddled to the local Waitrose with my rucksack to get the ingredients, I’d bought some small presentation jars online from Lakeland, cute at  only 100ml but still practical enough to get a good few spoons worth. I won’t bore you with a whole story on how I made it but here’s a few piccys – I was amazed at how easy they were to make, and the results actually tasted really good. I loved decorating the jars with some labels and fabric toppers! Hopefully they’ll go down well at the Christmas table!

Stewing the apples

Have a wonderful Christmas.

Lots of love
Shoe xxx

Anyway. I’d also signed up for another swap – which i’ve posted about before – a UK based swap done through Ravelry. My swap partner has been spoiling me rotten over the last month, with regular weekly parcels containing little things, and yesterday even a malteasers advent calendar, and then today my parcel arrived!

What can I say, the contents was amazing – I can’t thankmy swap partner enough – she has truely outdone herself. Here are some piccys of the fab contents:

Luckiest girl in the world aren’t I??? Can’t wait to get knitting with that yarn!

Thank you fairynuff!!!

Love

Shoe xxxx

He’d chosen the yarn – a Freedom Spirit Chunky in a lovely deep jade/orange colourway – he’d chosen the pattern the fabulous Aaron’s Hat - I just never got round to knitting it. I’m not sure if subconciously previous stories of relationships turning sour halfway through the knitting of a boyfriend jumper had kept it at the back of my queue but in any case the yarn and pattern sat there for almost 6

months before I finally got round to knitting it.

Anyway, it’s done, it’s a lovely pattern – it’s a great easy tv knit which probably wouldn’t have taken more than a couple of evenings if I’d set my mind to it. I’m a bit worried it’s a tad small, but the Welsh Boy seemed pleased when I showed him the picture and I’ll just have to wait until next weekend to see if it fits…..

love

Shoe xxxxx

(picture courtesy of gravyphig on flickr)

I think it was the wonderful Hoxton Handmade that introduced me to the Brooklyn Tweed pattern Bedford, I’d been looking for a pattern to use for a bagful of Artesano aran weight yarn that I’d originally bought for another project but had decided against at the last minute. I think I went through about 8 patterns and was feeling a bit uninspired about what to knit – something that looked complex but wasn’t too complicated so when i came across this I was instantly sold.

This pattern is of the quality that we would expect from the fabulous designers at Brooklyn Tweed, easy to follow and well written, well worth the price tag in my opinion. Plus I’m so excited about wearing what is looking to be a lovely warm and cosy jumper!

My only real concern is that i’m knitting at a snails pace, it’s such a lovely easy knit but with the bits of christmas knitting I have to do already mounting up I can’t see this getting finished much before February!

love

Shoe
xxx

The first was from one of my fabulous midwifery friends Annie, she knows about my obsession with all things orange (seriously my wardrobe is now about 50% orange clothing!) and having spend the evening with one of her very crafty friends playing with resin had made me a lovely orange flower ring which she gave to me when we happened to be on placement on the same day – it’s so stunning – I hardly ever wear rings (most shop bought ones are too big for my tiny fingers!) but i just love this and want to wear it all the time.

I then got home to a little package with this gorgeous little knitted handbag keyring, no note attached, although i presumed it was from my FABULOUS swap partner for the Ravelry UK Swaps Winter Swap – she’s spoiling me already with some lovely embroidery threads and now this gorgeous little keyring and the swap hasn’t even been sent out yet!!! I literally can’t wait for that parcel! I really hope that her swap partner is treating her as well!!

lots of love

Shoe xxx

The Welsh Boy and I went to York last week, I’ve never been before and what a truly brilliantly beautiful city it is! I wanted to stay forever. Anywho, whilst we were there we came across a little craft fair tent type thing which the Welsh Boy suggested we go into (well trained!). There were lots of wonderful handmade items but one stall really caught my eye and when i started chatting to the lovely gentleman who owns the company Oakwood Aromatics with his wife I realised that they truly were the essence of hand/home made!

In the end I settled for some Turkish Moisture melts in rose, which are wonderful little cubes that you can use as a hand moisturizer (my hands are always dry these days from all the washing and alcohol gel at the hospital) or pop into your bath for a truly luxuriant experience! They do lots of other wonderful handmade bath and shower items – and they did a bit for Kirsty’s Handmade Britain which should be on the show on 30th November! I love Kirsty!!!

Anyway no trip to York would be complete without afternoon tea, so we went to the world famous Betty’s tearoom for scones with Jam and clotted cream – pure heaven!

There was a great market selling lots of lovely handmade items and home grown plants, the Welsh Boy bought a chilli plant called a Numex Twilight – I’m not a chilli fan but I desperately want one of these plants now it’s so beautiful so we’re going to try and clone it – i’ll keep you posted on how that goes!!!

lots of love

Shoe xxx

I recently took part in my first swap on Ravelry – i used to do a lot of scrapbooking swaps and really enjoyed them but didn’t feel ready for a knitting swap. However, when one of my fave podcasters A playful day mentioned a smaller scale swap for podcast listeners I thought that would be good to get involved.

Now I will say at this point that the swap is ongoing – but me in my hyper organised-ness have already posted my parcel and this has been recieved by my fabulous swappee……so I’m not giving away any secrets! I haven’t yet recieved my parcel but given that the posting date is not until next week there’s still plenty of time to go.

However, I wanted to big up a couple of the British online shops I used for my swappee’s parcel because the quality of the items was just fabulous.

Firstly is the wonderful Hilltop Cloud etsy shop  or folksy shop where I got these GORGEOUS samples and spindle. They are just lovely, beautiful colours, beautifully packaged, fabulous fabulous fabulous! I almost want to take up spinning myself just to use some of the gorgeous fibers she has in her shop. The spindle is great quality and perfect for a beginner – i can’t comment on whether it’s good for an experienced spinner but I’m sure it is!!

Secondly I wanted to big up the fabulous RosiesMoments etsy shop where I got these beautiful mini skeins from. The skeins of handpainted sock yarn are stunning but I was so chuffed that they came wrapped in a beautiful cellophane bag with some little stitch markers and a tiny lavender bag, given that they were a present this was PERFECT and quite frankly a bargain!!!

I’ve always been wary of making things for people, i’m just not good enough yet – but as I wanted to include a handmade item in my package I chose a gorgeous pattern by the fabulous Designs by Dianna called Nathair Mitts. Fabulous pattern and well worth the $2 price tag – a lovely easy knit using well under 100g of yarn (this is my only teeny tiny down point about the pattern is that the yardage it gives is well over what you need and I nearly didn’t knit them as i thought I’d be short.) These are an easy 2 evening knit with a nice cable pattern and they come up just lovely. I finally found a use for the  Mirasol Yarn I got as a bargain at Knit Nation too – it’s SO soft that i think i’ll use the cream to knit some for me (or my housemate if she has any say in the matter!).

Big thanks to my lovely swappee Marama for letting me use her photos as I totally forgot to take any before I sent it!

Promise to blog again soon

loves

shoe xxx

Just a quickie to show you some pictures of my finished Ishbel! HUGE thanks to Martine for the gorgeous photos (www.iMake.gg).

Super chuffed with it! The stitch definition looks a billion times better now it’s blocked. Just need some chillier weather to wear it now!!

love shoe

xxx

I had such a lovely time recording with Martine, and a really fab day out!

The link to the iMake blog with the podcast is here, or search for iMake on iTunes and listen to episode 28.

I’d love to know what you think.

lots of love

Shoe xxx