New pattern: Nikolaus

In Germany, Nikolaus is on the 6th of December. On the evening before you put out a (clean!) shoe in front of you door and come the morning, Saint Nikolaus has come and gone. And if you've been good during the year he will have left you a little present. (And if you've been bad, he'll have left you a rod to be punished with, yeah, very old tradition.)



Nikolaus is knitted with Cascade 220 Wool (about 50g in red and white, 25g in black, but any felt-able worsted weight yarn should work) and 5mm needles. He needs a little duplicate stitch embroidery (the coat opening/midline, shoes and eyes) and then he is felted.
He has an opening at the back for you to fill him with little presents and treasures for those you care about.



This little one (the finished felted Nikolaus stands about 10cm high is is about 8cm wide) will not only look cute but he can also be filled with little presents (nuts, clementines etc) for this season of giving.
And because it is the season of giving, Nikolaus is a free pattern (for the 2011 Christmas season, I'm hoping to have another free pattern for next year) - he's this years Christmas present from me. The pattern has been tech-edited (by the lovely Jen Arnall-Culliford) and one kind soul on Ravelry (remydzs) has test-knitted him for me. Thanks again to both of you. Any mistakes are still of course my fault, but I'm hoping there are none!
I hope you enjoy knitting, keeping and gifting him.

download now

Patti's Scarf

Well over a year ago the Craflit and Knitty holiday tour stopped off in Wales. And we met up and had a lovely evening chatting and meeting each other. For that meet-up we had arranged a scarf-exchange and Patti and I partnered up.
Here's us with our new scarves (that would be Patti on the left and me with the gorgeous scarf she knitted for me on the right):



And I have finally gotten around to writing up the pattern for her scarf. And because Craftlit and Patti were the inspiration behind the scarf, it is now available to download (for free!) from the Craftlit site (if you are luckily enough to have a "smart" phone and the Craftlit app then the pattern has been available to you for the past week already).

So, I present you "Patti's Scarf":



It's knit in sock yarn - the light blue one (on the pattern title page) is knit in good old Regia Sock Wool (no link here as that yarn is luckily pretty much omnipresent), the red one in 100% Merino sock yarn from the Wollmeise and Patti's original dark blue scarf was knit in Fyberspates Echo self-striping. You'll need 550-600m of yarn, somewhere around the 150g mark and 3.5mm needles.
The scarf is knit in two halves which are then grafted together - sorry guys, but the edging only works when "knitted up". And I have fallen in love with the edging, so I think it's worth the little effort on the grafting.



Here are a few links on how to do grafting/kitchener stitch:

Simple Kitchener Stitch:
Knitty - Techniques with Theresa
Knittinghelp.com - Youtube video
nonaKnits - for those who struggle with the knitwise and purlwise directions...
knitting-and.com - Tutorial for grafting stocking and garter stitch
Wikihow.com - Tutorial for grafting stocking and garter stitch (may I point you to one of the last tip for grafting ribbing - which is what you need to do if you want the "perfect" join for the scarf)
Stolen Stitches - Tutorial for grafting 2x2 Ribbing
fey - k2p2 grafting (no images but clear instructions)

If you have any questions about the grafting (as this is neither pure stocking stitch nor pure 2x2 ribbing), ask away, I'm toying with the idea of putting a tutorial up but haven't worked out how to grow the second set of arms I'd need to do the grafting and photography at the same time....

Big thanks go out to JenAC for a wonderful job in tech editing! Thanks for all the help, Jen!
I hope you like the pattern and enjoy knitting it. As per usual - please let me know about any problems or errors in the pattern, so that I can help you and fix it for other knitters.

The pattern is up on the Craftlit page at the moment, so head over there if you fancy knitting Patti's Scarf. And it's a *free* pattern, you can just go there and download it if you so with. It's in the sidebar on the right, you have to scroll down a little to get to the button. I'm not placing the button here because I want you to go and have a look at Craftlit, I think what Heather is doing is great, I can't wait for my next "Dracula"-Fix.

Santa mug shot

Just a little teaser - I'm currently working on this:

My little gang.

Never knew Santas could look that much like mafiosi.
Pattern will be available in a little while, am currently sorting through photos and waiting to hear back from the lovely JenAC who is doing the tech editing. :)

Oh, and did I mention that the pattern will be my Christmas present to you this year? For this year it'll be free!!
And now I will stop talking about that as it is not even November yet.

Socks, socks and more socks

First things first: last saturdays Knit Surgery raised nearly 33 pounds (and I made a new knitter)! Not quite sure which one makes me prouder. ;) Though there was a certain irony that a German was teaching a Portugese to knit in Wales whilst fundraising for p/hop and Doctors without Borders. It amuses me no end. But then I am easily pleased. Yarn and knitting needles usually do the trick nicely. ;) The next Knit Surgery will happen somewhere around the end of November/beginning of December - Anna will be moving the shop over to Whitchurch Rd soon-ish and I'm not quite sure which saturday will suit both of us. But I'll keep you posted.

Actual knitterly content with pictures of knitted items. Yes, I know. Scary. And more than one. But it helps that socks generally come in pairs. And I have been knitting socks. Ok, I am still knitting socks. And I will keep knitting socks until Christmas at least.
When I asked my uncle if they were coming for Christmas this year (I need to know how many more pairs need knitting), he answered to just keep knitting, we'd "find a solution". Somehow the whole - "if I don't get to see you, trade banter with you and get at least one bear hug of you and an embrace of my aunt, you don't get no hand-knit socks" has not occurred to him. If I knit stupidly large dark man socks, I want something for it. Not doing this from the goodness of my heart. ;) Ok, I admit it. If they don't make it, I'll stick the socks in an envelope and mail them. *sigh* My family knows me too well.

Socks. I wanted to show you socks. The Christmas production has begun. I have recipients for these two pairs in mind but won't tell you because at least it'll be a surprise who gets which socks. ;) Ok, the size will give things away a little, but never mind.

First up a nice and simple pair made according to my standard sock "recipe" but done toe-up with a short-row heel (I usually knit top-down with a heel flap):



The yarn came from Blue Hands Fibers and this is the "Ravel Me" colourway. Sadly I cannot give you a link to the shop as the lovely owner has closed it since I purchased the yarn (admittedly quite a while ago). But I really like the base and the colours a beautiful. The socks are a size 38/39 and knit on 2mm needles (I think that is around a 4-5 UK but am not sure). And I hope the recipient will like them.

The second pair:

This is a "left-over" pair made from left-over sock yarn. Not that you could tell. I had about 2/3 of a skein of Fyberspates Echo Self-Striping (sorry that yarn is also discontinued) in Captain Carrot and about 1/3 of a mystery black sock yarn (lost the ball band, ooops). And I wanted stripy socks. So out comes the pattern for the Stashbuster Sprials by Janine Hempy - always great for decent sized left-overs. I used 2mm needles again and knitted from both ends of the Captain Carrot at the same time - and I really like the subtle differences in the orange. Sadly the socks are just a tad to small for me (size 40/41 - UK 7ish) so I can't keep them. Because I'd be tempted otherwise. ;)

The next pair of socks is already on the needles but before I show those to you I hope to be able to share a pattern with you first.

Take care!

October 2011 Knit Surgery

Just a quick post to say that the next Knit Surgery will be this Saturday (the 15th October 2011) at Big Knitters (Wellfield Rd, Cardiff) from 11 am onwards. I'll definitely be there until about 2pm and after that you have to try your luck. ;)



So - if you have any knitterly questions, come by and I shall do my best to help you. And as before anybody who would like to donate to Doctors without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontiers through the p/hop fundraiser is more than welcome!

In other "news", yes I'm still knitting but currently time is always running away from me so that I end up with time for blogging and taking pictures when the daylight is gone - that time of year has started... I'm hoping to have some photos/projects to show you on the weekend...

Take care everyone and hope to see many on Saturday!