Knitting

I'll start with knitting as that is where I started!  My grandma taught me to knit as a small child and I loved to make toys from Jean Greenhowe's books.  When I decided, aged 32, to pick it up again, my grandmother was no longer with us so I turned to a book.  I chose Knitty Gritty by Aneeta Patel.  It really is a fantastic book and made it so easy to pick up. 

I started at the beginning and knitted a chunky scarf for myself...

The next project in the book was a pair of baby booties, so I knitted them.  Luckily my friends Lucy and Ben had just had a baby girl (hello Chloe!) so I could put them to use.

Then I knitted a hat.  My first disaster.  I wanted the hat to match the scarf.  The scarf had been knitted in a big chunky wool and the hat pattern called for DK.  I thought I could get round that by not using as many stitches as it said to use in the pattern, the result?  A new hat for my nearly-2 year old goddaughter, Rebecca!

So I knitted a hat in a different wool.

After all this knitting and purling, I needed a challenge so moved swiftly onto the lacy summer scarf.  I decided to knit this for my Aunty Gwen's birthday and used a Sublime merino wall in a nice shade of pink. 

I was so proud of it, I made another for my friend Graz's birthday!

Doing well in knitting so far!  This was all swiftly followed by a knitted mouse, for no reason at all, taken from Knitted Toy Tales by Laura Long:

And a lacy look mohair scarf knitted in Sublime Kid Mohair for my mother-in-law Nita's birthday.  It looks quite nice but was SO boring to knit, it's all just a loose knit.  Yawn.

At about this time I'd joined in a swap over on Cut Out + Keep and decided I wanted to knit a butterly brooch.  I found a pattern on the internet but when I knitted it, I didn't like it at all so, wait for it... I made up my own!  I was so so proud of myself for this simple little pattern:

(Little butterfly is bottom right - I don't know how to crop photos!!)

And there we are.  Next knitting post will be up to date and a bit more interesting, I hope!