GuernseyGal Designs

But as this is Knitting and Crochet blog week I really needed to make the effort to blog.

Plus the Little Prince KAL has just concluded which means I can show you the finished article

The Little Prince , in Unique Sheep Luxe fingering weight, colourway Sky and Sand knitted on 3.75mm needles with silver lined gold no 6 seed beads added by crochet hook

This KAL has been so much fun and has prooved the old adage that you cannot have too many testers – this has been my most tested shawl to date and the one that has encountered the least problems

The next Kal has already been announced, this one is going to be a bit different. First off it is going to be laceweight and secondly it is not based on a childrens classic book. This one is called the Spirit of Guernsey and each clue will come with a snippet or 6 of information about my beautiful home island.

There are a couple of books that I am recommending if people want to do a read along, but they are neither childrens books nor compulsory

One is the Guernsey Potato Peel Pie Literary Society which is a fictional book set in and around the Occupation and the other is The Story of Eberneezer Le Page again a fictional account of Guernsey life from the turn of the centry to the 1960′s. It may be fictional , but there is plenty in there that I recognise, and I wasn’t born til the 60′s!

I now need to rush off and do some more work on the Spirit of Guernsey shawl plus I have just wound some pretty silk lace weight which is going to be a special stole that I intend to wear at my daughters graduation this summer – better get cracking!

I’m sorry, things have  been so mad around here that I never managed to get round to posting about anything, let alone wishing you all a Merry Christmas

So here I am on New Years Day trying to do a catch up post. I’m not going to do blog 365 or anything as mad as that, but I will try and post more often

Since we last spoke, another KAL has been and gone and we have release the name of the next one

We did a small Shawlette KAL to finish off the year

The Jungle Book Shawlette

Sample in Dark Japonica on Luxe fingering weight - knitted on 4mm needles

Our next Kal is going to be based on a book I had never read as a child, but have read about many times since. As soon as I read it I knew it had to be a shawl, it is such a beautiful book , it is hard to realise that it was written do many years ago – if seem so fresh – and the illustrations are wonderful.

Oh I didn’t mention it’s name?

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

We are playing the where is the yarn dance again

The shawl for Knit Magazine is done and dusted, BUT the cardigan is stalled because yet again the postman doesn’t seem to know where I live.

According to the tracking number USPS managed to deliver the first lot to somewhere in France. The second lot is still enroute and has been for about 3 weeks. Several other packages from the US have arrived in the meantime – including 2 pairs of shoes that got here from Kentucky in 2 days!  So why can’t they get my yarn here!

The deadline has already been extended to the end of Feb – lets hope things don’t get as tight as they did with the shawl last time – this cardi is 4 ply!

Anyways…

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas  I certainly did!  I wish you all a happy. healthy and prosperous New Year

Sorry everyone, I’m a little bit excited

You see a few months ago I knitted a stealth project as an entry to a competition. Claudia Handpaints were running a competition for lace shawl designs, I entered the professional category with this

Romance Stole in Claudia Handpaints

Pure silk laceweight

colourway # chocolat

I was delighted to be informed a couple of weeks ago that I had won the runners up prize! they did say that they would be getting in touch about my prizes in a few weeks and I was sort of expecting an email – so you can imagine my surprise when I got home today to find a large cardboard box delivered from the post office with their return address on it!

When I opened the box this is what I found

(click to embiggen so you can see everything)

Amazing!

the easiest way to do this I think is to list them

1. A complete set of Susan Bates straight needles in a case

2. A Pink set of Denise interchangables

3. A Gina Maria shawl pin

4. A Jessalu project bag

5. A Lantern Moon silk project bag

5. A Lantern Moon sheep tape measure

6. A lantern moon embroidered notebook

7. A needle organiser which is perfect for all my odd circulars I have kicking about

8. 1200 yds of luscious pure silk Claudias Handpaint in Eat your greens colourway

9. Crazy Lace book

10. A gift voucher for $25.00 from patternfish

All enclosed with a lovely hand written letter from Claudia.

The shawl will returned in a month or so as it is needed for a fashion show at Stitches East – Squee!!! More exposure which is fabulous for business

Next post – pictures of the finished Phoenix and The Carpet KAL and details of the next KALs in the pipeline

Oh and by the way – not only did I make the deadline for that shawl, but they have accepted two more designs for the summer issues too!

Laters!! xx

Still waiting for the yarn to arrive for the shawl for Knit Magazine here in the UK

I need to get the sample to them by 20th of September.

I reckon that with a big push I could knit it in 2 days, but I am torn.

Do I cut my losses and knit the sample in 2 strands of fingering, by the same company, but a slightly different red, or do I wait for the yarn to get here and hope they don’t mind the fact it is a couple of days late? – I really don’t want to muck up their schedules…..

According to the USPS tracking it left their US depot on the 4th of September – so where is the blessed thing?

I think I am going to leave it one more day and if it isn’t here by tomorrow night I shall start on the alternative – if only because Murphy’s law states that if I start it – yarn is certain to arrive…..

Meanwhile we are on to Clue 9 of 10 in the Phoenix & the Carpet mystery KAL.

I have designed  special “extra” for those that did the KAL – as I know they will have yarn left over – I have it all ready to go – just can’t show it – or Phoenix for another week – so patience my friends

Ok back to the secret project that is taking up all my time

See you next week – with photographs!!!!

Hi everyone,

Where does the time go – I really need to get my act together and post more often – I do admire bloggers who manage to do it daily or even weekly – I can think of plenty to say, but I am woefully short of projects I can talk about

In the last 2 months I have designed and knitted a shawlette, a shawl, 2 socks, a bonus pattern for the intrepid bunch knitting along on the Phoenix and the Carpet , designed and am about to test knit yet another shawl and have on the needles a lace garment. All destined for either books or magazines in the next few months – when at last I will be able to tell you about them!

One thing I can tell you is a cautionary tale – one of those , If I knew this before I became a designer I would have done it different type stories

I have designed a shawlette of a British magazine and it is going to be in their February edition. I got myself well organised, got the design done and the pattern test knitted,got everything ready to go to the company and posted it off with months to spare – one down several others to go.

Ummm no.

You see I sent the parcel to the wrong address. I was unaware of the fact that the company had moved and sent it to the address that was on the documentation that they originally sent me months before the move AND I didn’t courier it I just shoved it in the post – after all it was only going to the mainland- not the States what could possibly go wrong?

You guessed it, it never arrived – or if it did no one has forwarded it on OR sent it back to me, so here I am with only 15 days to the final deadline sweating on an order of yarn to knit, block and post off a replacement for their photo shoot

Moral of the story? Make sure you have the correct address, make sure your return address is on the parcel AND courier it!

Ah well we live and learn, off now to get some more of this lace garment I am testing . I’m in the boring bit, stockinette, in the round in laceweight on 3mm needles – yawn…. Whats on tele?…

I leave you with an interesting photo – my new knee strapping – My physio says it will help with the knee pain until they can get me my custom orthotics…..

Yes apparently it has.

And the really irritating thing is that even after the month I STILL can’t show you anything grrrr!

I have loads of “stuff” on the needles and it is all super sekret so no pictures

I do however have something I want to talk about.

Needles.

Now if you are like me, when you first started knitting you had a few pairs of needles, probably straights and as you progressed in your knitting hobby, you discovered all sorts of needles.

Dpn’s for socks

or circulars for socks, either 2 circulars or magic loop

circular needles for jumpers in the round, or shawls, or in my case just about everything I knit exept for socks.

Needles are a very subjective things. One persons favourite is another persons nightmare

I personally use dpns for socks rather than 2 circulars of magic loop  – there is nothing wrong with either of the other methods but after 10 years of trying them all I have gone back to dpns. However my tasts have changed over the years and I have gone from aluminium, to steel and finally settled on wood or bamboo – though I do struggle with the smaller sizes ( I tend to snap them)

For just about everything else I use circulars – even when I am knitting straight – I find that it saves wear and tear on my wrists as the weight of the knitting is in my lap, not on my arms.

When it comes to circulars I am particular. I have tried all sorts. Aeros with solid very unbendable cables ( not recommended) Knitpro wooden, Knitpro nickel, Knitpro special edition rosewood,( all interchangable)  addi ( ordinary and lace) and Brittany wooden ones, etc etc.

Now I am not going to recommend one above an other and this is not an advert for  any particular company, but I would say that with all things it is horses for courses and in all these cases the most important this for me is that they have nice sharp points ( all of these do ) AND a good join.

Now in most cases in the larger sizes the joins on all of these are fine, but once you get down into the smaller lace sizes 2.75mm – 3.75mm and all sizes in between these, the join is VITAL. when you are working in laceweight yarn, be it silk of merino or alpaca if the stitches are catching on the join IT WILL EVENTUALLY DRIVE YOU BATTY!

I am currently working on two matching lace designs. Both in silk, one laceweight, one fingering. the fingering weight one is on my rosewood interchangables on 3.5mm – the join is bearable on the fingering weight, but the lacweight , AHGRRR!  I started off on a Knitpro 3mm interchangable , but after about 3 inches I had to bite the bullet and buy a fixed circular needle because the join just kept catching.

To be fair to Knitpro 3mm is the very smallest they go in their interchangeable range and it cannot be all things to all yarns – it’s fine on fingering – silk lace? um no.

I splashed out on an Addi Lace fixed circular, the join is fabulous, the points are VERY pointy and as the pattern contains lots of nupps this is a godsend.

As I said at the beginning of this post. I am not affiliated with any company, I have any number of makes of needles in my bag and what suits me is probably a complete anathema to anotherknitter, but I just though it was a subject worth exploring

So what’s in your bag?

I can’t leave you picture less so here is an little something to whet your appetite

It is a sneak peek cropped photo of our latest KAL The Phoenix and the Carpet.

Sorry to be so absent at the moment, but I have 4 stoles and a garment to design/test knit by September. And I’m still working full time, trying to get fit and need to pop to the mainland to help daughter move house next month – thank goodness the school holidays are on the way.

In the meantime I got a lovely note in the email from Knit magazine ( used to be Yarn Forward) to say that they were publishing my Christening set in this months edition ( issue 39). It was such a surprise. I knew it was going to be in one of the issues, but it had to be moved from the original date because it wouldn’t fit ( loooong pattern).

The photo shoot was lovely, shame the main photos has the shawl inside out, but to be honest was an easy mistake to make especially while trying to style and keep a squirming baby happy

This picture shows the shawl the right way round

This one is inside out

For those who like the details, it is knitted in Mini Maiden by Handmaiden yarns – it’s a pure silk single ply fingering weight yarn that is one of the softest things I have ever felt Colourway #Smoke

The lace patterns are based on the Estonian Lily of the Valley patterns and has lots of nupps

I originally threaded deep amethyst velvet ribbon through the dress for an antique feel, but the stylist seems to have decided that it was a little too dark or something and they replaced them – never mind

Ah well, onwards and upwards – time to do some more knitting on the test knit for Phoenix and the Carpet. That one is due out in July and I still have a way to go. So little time so much to knit – see ya!

As promised, here is the post that disappeared

When Kristi asked me if I would like to design something for the new book I was delighted – I loved working with her on the last book.

I did have one small problem – I didn’t really know what kids these day liked to wear – both my children are at University and live in jeans and hoodies

Luckily I share an office with a good friend with 4 children between the ages of 3 and 13 so I was able to pick her brains about a) what she thought her children would wear and b) what would she want to dress them in.

The  design she suggested was a beach cover up that her children would wear over damp bathers to keep off a chill wind while making sand castles on the local beaches

When Kristi accepted this design we decided to call it Jim

Knitted in an organic cotton it is also very soft to the skin and as it is worsted weight it knits up really quickly

Next up is a little strappy lace top tied at the shoulders with ribbon straps which we decided to call Hermione and for those chillier days there is a little cropped cardigan that will keep their arms warm – we called that one Ginny

considering the colour we used for the photo samples it seemed apt to name them after two of my favourite fictional redheads.

These are only 3 of the designs in the book there are more than 30 in all from some wonderful designers – pop over to Ravelry and have a look at the rest, I promise you it’s worth it

Yesterday I was supposed to post an entry all about the new book Knitting in the Sun for Kids. I had it all written and ready publish automatically while I was on the road. Imagine my suprise when I popped into the blog this morning only to find……… nothing.

Not only is the post not published – it is not even sitting in drafts – it is just. gone.

I’m flying home this evening and will have access to my photos and everything I need to reconstruct the post – so apologies to my fellow designers for messing up the schedule and to all of you who popped over to read my post all I can say is stay tuned!

I’ll be back!

The final clue went out on the Little mermaid KAL on Friday.

We had a few hitches with the laceweight version of Clue 7 – I had to amend the pattern to make sure I had enough yarn and somehow the old and the new clues got mixed up when I sent them to the tech editor.

Still apart from a couple of minor panics and a possible problem with people running out of yarn for the fingering version due to a badly placed transition things have gone fairly smoothly.

For those who are still knitting and don’t want to see what it looks like – look away now

and this is the fingering weight version blocking

This one has been such fun

for those who like the details

the laceweight verion is Unique sheep Eos in Abalone gradiance with no 8 AB crystal seeds bead on 3.25mm needles

the fingering weight in Madeline Tosh light fingering merino in Dahlia colourway with berry lined cinnamon AB size 6 seed beads on 4mm needles

Quick word on this yarn – is is slightly thick and thin – which is fine by me, but my how the dye bled. It took about 8 rinses to get the water clear so if you do use it make sure you rinse well or you may finish up with a purple neck!

The pattern will be available for sale in the next week or so – we just need to put it all together and make sure we have all the errata fixed.

Next up the test knitting of the next KAL design which will also be announced in the next couple of weeks and an exciting new project which ha to remain secret, but is going to be so much fun!