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.