I no longer have to steal my husband's slippers!

It has been a point of contention in the Hart household that I have been stealing John's slippers since my mum bought them for him last Christmas. But they're so warm and fleecy and I don't have any slippers. However, with Baby Hart's appearance only 6 weeks away, I needed some slippers to put in my hospital bag (apparently) and I don't think a pair of size 10, half-leg slippers shaped like dogs are really going to cut it on the labour ward.

As is the answer with most things here, I decided to make a pair. And, as is also so often the case, they couldn't just be any slippers, could they?

Cue an old favourite book, 'Knitting Mochimochi' (Anna Hrachovec, 2010, Watson Guptill) and the design that graces the front cover of the book itself. 'Feet Eaters' on page 107 are neat slippers that look like monsters are eating your feet. Brilliant. The sole is knitted with two strands of yarn on US size 8 (UK size 6) needles and take relatively no time to make. They are done entirely in gartar/plain knit stitch and do not get any more complicated than being able to increase knit-wise (or 'kfb' knit front and back). You then pick up stitches around the edge of the soles on double point needles to create the sides of the slipper.

The head part of the monsters are knitted separately.This was basically like knitting a tiny hat on double point needles in the round (US size 6/UK size 8). This is then stuffed, with the teeth added as you stitch them up. In terms of creating the slippers, construction was easy and straight-forward. The decrease rows, created by a mix of k2tog and SSK, provide a clear ridge that corresponds to the edge of the sole. This makes a clear boundary for stitching. The cute ears, sewn on at the end, finish the slippers beautifully.

In all, the pair of slippers took me four days to make in their entirety. In the end, I plumped for the smallest size because they provided the most snug fit across my stupidly narrow feet. I think that would be the only drawback to the pattern; the looseness across the foot. I also chose to change the colours slightly from what was recommended. Instead of going with a pink mouth and pastel slippers, I made red and black monsters. Anyone reading this who knows me personally will not be surprised by that!

Wired

I spent some time in Providence, Rhode Island last year and I met many keen knitters there (not to mention visiting all of the knitting and craft shops in the city itself - heaven). One of them mentioned that she had enrolled on an evening course to learn how to 'knit with wire' and I honestly thought I had misheard. Wire? Knitting? With wire? As if.


Back in England, curiosity peaked and in a post-travelling funk, I started Googling "wire knitting". It was then that I found a vast array of photographs of beautiful, intricate jewellery created with knitting needles. Amazing! I kept on searching and reading and made a page of notes with people's hints and advice for achieving success in what looked like a particularly tricky craft area. The one consistent factor was that it should be attempted with 28 gauge wire, which I found in abundance on eBay. Since then, I have discovered that Hobbycraft also sell it on reels, in a variety of colours, for under £2.

My experiments with wire knitting have been varied in their successes. For a start, it's really difficult and makes your hands hurt. I had to dust off my knitter's wrist support gloves to prevent getting a RSI! Yarn bends and moves, making knitting a pleasure. Wire is much less forgiving. I had to loosen my stitches and use an embroidery needle at intervals to pull the stitches into order. Most of my jewellery so far has been knitted on UK size 10 needles, which are pretty small. This is to make neat, small jewellery but again ramps up the difficulty. Lots of patience is required if you are going to attempt this!

To start off, I used the exceptionally simple backwards loop casting on method shown here. This gives you a supple edge without too much messy wire sticking out. You must remember to cast on the loops from the reel of wire and not the tail from the slip-knot - I kept forgetting and having to slip it onto a new needle at the end. If you are going to attempt to use beads in your work, these need to be slipped onto the reel of wire before you cast on. Again, a learning curve that I did not get straight away. I then just used garter stitch to knit as usual until my wire was the right size.

For the wrist cuff, I cast on 20 stitches and knitted roughly 10 rows. I then used the break and thread method of casting off followed by wrapping the tail of wire tightly around one of the other stitches. Some of my cuffs are fastened with hooks, some with ribbon.

I still have a lot to learn about this method of jewellery making, but I'm pleased with my progress so far :)

P is for pterodactyl...

Recently something horrible happened. My lovely nan, the woman who effectively enabled and inspired this blog, died at home. I miss her terribly and only wish she could be here in October to see her newest great-grandson. In true form, the last thing she did before going to sleep that night was write 'blue wool' on her shopping list so that she could knit Baby Hart something. That is perhaps the most touching thing I will remember and simultaneously made the whole ordeal both better and worse.

What my nan did do was leave me all of her knitting needles and patterns in her will. I'll be honest and say I was excited to get my hands on them - mostly because of a set of books that I spent most of my youth studying and working through.

Nan was a big fan of Jean Greenhowe the woman behind the scarecrow family that used to be on one of the stops of the Playdays bus (remember that?!). As a child, I loved her creations and nan knitted the majority of them for me. Every week in the school holidays we would bike to Roys of Wroxham to see if she had a new book out and shriek with joy when she did. I now find myself in possession of upward of 20 of these pattern books and, I suppose as a way of coping with my grief, I wanted to knit something right away.

The choice was easy in the end. The first thing I ever knitted from a pattern from start to finish was a little yellow dinosaur with orange spots and his caveman friend. These patterns were in her 'Toy Collection' (1989, Jean Greenhowe Publications) book and you can see pictures of them here. It made sense to go back and create some more cute dinosaurs, so I did! I knitted two 'flying reptiles' and two 'cave people' (pg13-14). Greenhowe's patterns are devilishly easy to follow and these are no exception. The cavemen are knitted all in one go and then stitched up at the end, so are dead quick to make. All four took me less than two evenings to create from start to finish. But what to do with them?

It was around this time that I spotted some wallpaper on a bourgeois home improvement tv show (again, it was on in the background when I was knitting. Promise.) and developed a slight obsession. After many an hour of Internet searches I found it here; 'Jolly Jurassic' fun dinosaur paper! Absolutely perfect for Baby Hart's room. So, with a wall of dinosaurs already, I figured the perfect thing to do was turn my knitted creatures into a cot mobile. And so I did. I'm not sure if the cavemen will ever catch their prey, but they're having a good try!

Baby Chucks

Apologies, readers, for not posting for a while. It is not through a lack of creative endeavour, more a lack of free time to sit and type. Anyway, with the long summer holidays stretching ahead of me, I have time to get my blog up to date with all of the knitting that has been going on here at KnitsandGiggles Towers.

I am currently 27 weeks pregnant and becoming slightly unwieldy. I thought, by now, that I would have a drawer full of knitted joys for Baby Hart but instead I find myself running out of time. Bugger. Time to knuckle down and get those needles clacking!

My most recent project has been a bit of a fun one. As with most people my age, I own at least one pair of Converse trainers. (I actually own many more than that, but I'm not about to admit how many!) It has got to the stage where my husband and I often go out wearing the same shoes without realising. This was then amplified when we went to London to visit a friend and he too was wearing the same colour and style of Chucks as us. A uniform of our youth? Who can say, but we have since diversified our colour choices! Anyway, it didn't seem right that the new addition to our family wouldn't have the same stylish footwear as his mum, dad and Godfather, so I went in search of a pattern...

For a while, I considered adapting a baby bootie pattern but, as is often the case with knitting, a quick search on the Internet saves you reinventing the wheel. And so I found this pattern, which is perfect. The booties are knitted all in one go, starting with the sole. You then have to shape the front of the shoe, knit the side, the separate tongue and then the final side. My first read through left me confused about this but as soon as I got knitting it was clear and easy to follow. They literally take shape right before your eyes. The laces are made from an i-cord, which I have detailed before. I didn't make any changes to the pattern; it worked a treat. The last thing I need to do is add the felt on the side with the star logo.

The result is a great pair of booties that are pretty unique and individual. I'm now busy knitting them on different size needles with a variety of colours to see him through as much growing as possible!

Hamster Herd

WARNING: A shameless plug for my business will be in this blog post.

I'm sure that anyone reading my blog will be sick of hearing about how great 'Stitch 'n Bitch' is, so I thought I'd shake things up and write about a whole new book. Great.

At Christmas, whilst shopping for others, I fell into the common trap of wandering off to the craft section in Waterstones. It was there that I found this book and immediately fell in love with the cute creations therein. 'Knitting Mochimochi' (Anna Hrachovec, 2010, Random House) is the most random knitting pattern book I have ever come across but it is WONDERFUL! I know that I don't need to knit a pencil, or a sofa or even a squirrel on roller skates, but that doesn't mean I don't want to.

Anyway, I took the book with me at Christmas to my mum's because knitting makes family tedium easier to take. (It really does. That's why I learnt in the first place.) My niece, 7, got a whole heap of Zhu Zhu Hamster rubbish on the big day but still seemed upset that she didn't get a litter of baby hamsters. 'Aha!' I yelled. 'I've got just the pattern!' and I brandished pg123: Hamster Herd. I then made a rod for my own back because I spent the rest of Christmas necking port and knitting sodding hamsters. The pattern is tremendously easy to follow and each hamster takes about 30 mins to make from start to finish. The legs are i-cords and very effective. The only problem is that they are knitted on US size 1 (UK size 13) double points, so it can be a bit of a faff.

Now Bon, the best kitsch company in the world ever, are having a stall at a market in Consett tomorrow (Citizens' House, 10am-4pm) and have been asked by the organisers to focus on knitwear rather than jewellery. This left me with a quandary - how can I increase knitwear in just three days so that our stall doesn't look bare? Hamsters! Yes! So that's what I've been knitting for the last two evenings. Feel free to come and see them decorating our stall tomorrow :) That is if I can get them away from John, who has been playing with them for the best part of half an hour...

Counting Sheep and Stitches

Having finally finished my jumper, I decided to turn my attention to another one. Yes, I am a glutton for punishment. This one, however, was to be considerably smaller - a first project for Baby Hart!

The jumper in question was one that caught my eye from the same book as before: 'Stitch 'n Bitch Superstar Knitting: Go Beyond the Basics' (Debbie Stoller, 2010, Workman Publishing). Sheepy Time on p220 is a great little cardigan with patterns for 3-6 months, 1yr, 2yrs and 4yrs. I knitted the smallest size to keep Baby Hart warm throughout the cold winter months here in Durham. And just so you don't all think I have a strange obsession with moss green wool, I thought I would use the extra ball of wool left over from my jumper. Plus, green is unisex, right?

The main appeal of this cardigan is the intarsia pattern which weaves cute but simple sheep around the whole garment. I love them and they were quick and easy to do. The attention to detail is fantastic; the edging and collar detail finish it off nicely. Overall, the cardigan took me three days to make in its entireity so I can honestly say it was pretty simple and an easy pattern to follow. Perfect! The only change I made was to not knit the black sheep. There'll be no black sheep in the Hart Family 2.0 - we're all weird.

The Never-Ending Story of my Jumper

I am by no means a slow knitter. Admittedly, most of my knitting is done whilst watching terrible TV, so I could be quicker were I to concentrate solely on the knitting. But, hey, the knitting validates the rubbish telly and vice versa. Quid pro quo.

Anyway, a while back I treated myself to 'Stitch 'n Bitch Superstar Knitting: Go Beyond the Basics' (Debbie Stoller, 2010, Workman Publishing). The first 'Stitch 'n Bitch' book is just great, especially if you can already knit. The designs are great fun and really easy to follow. Bearing that in mind, I figured that I would find the advanced book just as easy with my years of knitting expertise. Hmm. What's that about pride and falling?

Project one was to be the Sweetheart Sweater (p314). This is made using US size 7 needles, which is the same as UK size 7 because it is where the sizes meet in the middle before going off in different directions. It is a lacework jumper - obviously the biggest worry here is that if you drop a stitch, you don't have a hope in hell of picking it up again! I will admit to you now that I got to the fifth row eight times before deciding that I was clearly doing something very wrong. The main hindrance I have found with these books is that they are American, so abbreviations don't always translate the same. Helpfully, the book does provide an index of abbreviations on page 164. My problem was with the SSSK command but I found a great video on You Tube here to explain it and just slipped an extra stitch. Perfect. As a result, my hearts began to emerge.

Apart from that, the jumper is quite straight forward. The edges create a lovely seam, which looks very professional when all stitched up. The bottom band is made by picking up stitches on a circular needle and then made all at once. This gives a nice, tight band with no visible joins. I will say that I picked up more stitches for the bottom band than was recommended because it seemed too few. I'm glad I did, because the jumper would have been far too tight otherwise. I also made it a bit longer.

It was around about the time that I started making this jumper that I found out I was pregnant. (This is where the never-ending story comes in...) Being pregnant makes you tired like you have never been tired before and, for the first time ever, I just couldn't be bothered to knit. My arms refused. My brain refused. So it took me 13 weeks to finish it and now it's too tight across my belly. Ah well, that's next winter sorted at least.

I'd better get started on the baby knits, now...