Pointless Knitting

I've been holding this post back because I didn't want to tempt fate. However, after a very exciting telephone call today, we got the news we've been waiting for. The husband and myself have been picked to be contestants on BBC's Pointless! We are off to TVC in London on Friday. Amazing.

Anyway, I'm sure you are all thinking, 'that's great, Suz. But what on Earth does that have to do with knitting?' A valid question, readers. Now, I'm not saying that knitting got us picked to be on TV, but it certainly helped...

Obviously the goal of any audition is to stand out and be remembered in a good way. You don't want to be too showy or precocious or annoying, but you also don't want to be forgettable. I had a good long think about what made us unique and the first thing that sprang to mind was knitting. Maybe, if I took along some of my work, they might think it was cool and remember us. With this in mind, I set about searching through my pattern books to find something worthy.

It was then that I had an epiphany - why not knit the presenters, Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman? I picked up my shiny blue UK size 10 needles and started straight away. I knitted each leg separately then knit across all stitches and up the body. The head, hair and jackets were all knitted separately and then stitched on at the end. I agonised over the features and facial details, but I think I got it just about right with the help of 6mm safety eyes. What do you think?

(Apologies for iPhone pic - not my camera of choice)


They were certainly admired in the audition (something I am very grateful for) so will accompany us to London next week.


The only sad thing is that someone beat me to it. Yes, a contestant a couple of weeks ago also knitted Alexander and Richard and took them on the show. Only time will tell if my efforts make it onto TV, but I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Felting Catastrophes

Apologies, first, for my lack of posts of late. I have been working away in the Knit Cave on some exciting new patterns, which I will be writing about soon. So if you have a penchant for all things geek related, keep checking back!

In the meantime, I had a little bit of an ordeal with some felting...

Now, as a knitter, I've always been aware of felting and its merits. For those of you that don't know, felting is the process of turning your yarn into, well, felt. Have you ever put a wool jumper through a hot wash? Well, that tiny, thick jumper that you pulled out of the machine has been felted. And when you do it on purpose, it can be very useful.

Felted wool is thick, solid and strong. This makes it perfect to use for bags, brooches and embellishments. It can also be cut out, so if you felt a large square, you can cut out flowers and other decorations from it. I've seen lots of lovely corsages at craft fairs that have been made from felted wool, and even a bag.

I decided it was time for me to have a go at all this, and set about looking for some appropriate yarn. Now, because you are going to heat the yarn up and make it mash together, it needs to be of a suitable material to allow you to do this. This is, of course, wool. Off I went to Boyes (other wool shops are available, but that's my wool shop of choice!) to get some and I had a right job finding any. Every time I looked at a label, it had synthetic materials mixed in. Eventually, I found a label claiming that the yarn was 100% wool (hooray!) so I bought it, excited by a new challenge.

I thought I would try and knit a simple pencil case, so I knitted two equal rectangles in st-st on 4mm needles. I sewed them together with blanket stitch and prepared to throw them in the washing machine. After reading various websites and knitting books, the most common advice was to put the knitting in a washing machine at 60 degrees with a towel and some washing powder. The towel helps to rough it up a bit, encouraging the fibres to fuse together.

Well, what came out was a complete mess! Honestly, for those of you that panic about washing wool garments and ruining them, don't. After all that, it came out looking just the same. So I threw it in a pan of water and boiled it. Seriously. And you know what happened? Still nothing.

Perplexed, I carried on researching. It turns out that some yarn, even if it is 100% wool, will have been chemically treated to stop it from going wonky in a washing machine. This wool will never felt. The trick is to check the label again - if it says you can wash it in a cold machine load, it won't felt. No matter what you do.

In the end, I dug out a beautiful ball of pure wool that I bought on honeymoon in Iceland from a wool factory in Vik. I knew it was wool because it had that almost greasy feel to it and broke apart very easily (one strong tug whilst knitting and it just snapped - took a lot of getting used to). I re-knitted the pencil case, threw it in the machine and out came a perfect, solid, felt bag. Hurrah!

In conclusion: check your labels, then check them again, then give up and go to a farm shop that has sheep outside.