crafts & knitting · new patterns

New pattern news

Hello again, I still have to edit photos and write a post about how beautiful the bluebells have been this year but today I have news of three new patterns. These have been keeping me very busy all year and I’ve been very indecisive about almost every aspect, which is why they’ve taken me much longer than expected, though cramming my concentration time into the few hours that Toby is at college hasn’t helped with speedy pattern writing progress. Still, they are at last done and as always I’m deeply grateful to my wonderful team of eagle-eyed test knitters who have helped me error check and test these out.

As always there are 2 versions of the animal:

  • There’s a mole with knitted on tights/pantyhose and shoes, who has a removable dress. This pattern has 3 options for the dress, a colour-work design worked in stranded knitting technique with 2 colours and 2 options for a textured dress with a pattern made of small knitted knots.
  • And a mole with a naked body and feet who has removable shorts and a sweater. The pattern has 2 options for the sweater, either a sweater knitted in stocking stitch with 3 bands of colour or a textured sweater with a pattern made of small knitted knots.

There’s also a new pattern for clothing to fit any of my 9 inch (23cm) tall animals and this contains 3 basic cardigan/jacket/coat shapes, a short waist length cardigan/jacket, a short waist length V neck cardigan and a longer length A line coat. The short cardigan/jacket and the longer A line coat can both be made with either a round neckline, a little ribbed collar or a hood. The hood will fit over the head of the animals with smaller ears such as the mole, monkey, cat and bear and for the animals with taller ears it looks nice just folded at the back and I’ve designed it with a curved bottom edge when it’s worn in this way.

As always the patterns are available on Ravelry and Etsy and I’ll be adding them to Lovecrafts shortly. I think Lucylocketland will soon have some of her sweet kits that include yarn and a printed copy of the pattern and if your local yarn shop is signed up to the Ravelry local yarn shop service then you can buy a copy from them and ask them to print it off for you.

Please remember that the above listed places are the only legitimate places that you can obtain copies of my patterns. In the last year pattern piracy has become a lot more common and me and my fellow pattern designers are noticing the impact, please don’t support theft and pattern piracy by either uploading or downloading copies of patterns to/from websites that offer them in exchange for tokens. Thank you so much for supporting independent designers and allowing us to make a small living from our own workย  xxx

crafts & knitting

Moley progress

Did you know that the collective noun for a group of moles is a labour? Not that there’s any reason why you should, because a group of moles is a rare thing as they are quite solitary little creatures who keep themselves to themselves.

Anyway, there is a labour of moles on my table today and that word is doubly relevant because I have definitely laboured over putting this pattern together. It’s not a difficult pattern, it’s just that I seem to have lost my decision making powers. I have dithered and procrastinated and gone back and forth over almost every aspect for months, fretting over the length of the nose, the size of the hands and exactly which brown, red or mustard colour would be right for the clothing. In the end I’ve had to give myself a stiff talking to. So decisions have now been made and the photos are mostly done, and now I’m just in the process of laying everything out and testing it through. It is coming together however and I’m looking forward to being able to share these new patterns for the moles and a little coat & cardigans pattern too.

Well that’s it from me today, although I have some lovely bluebell pictures to share in my next post, Spring is in full swing here and it is glorious. I hope there’s a little glory going on somewhere in your week too, see you soon, J x

 

crafts & knitting · wildlife

Early April

Spring is in full swing here and the days are lengthening and warming up nicely. The plum tree blossom is now just faded confetti on the ground, but for a few weeks it was a glorious sight, especially when illuminated by the ghostly light of the full moon or warmed to a rosy glow by the rising sun. Do you see the red kite gliding overhead? It was only a few years ago that these majestic birds returned to this area, but now we see at least one every day and sometimes as many as six circling high overhead, they are wonderful to watch.

Here we’ve been plodding on quietly and keeping to familiar and comforting routines. There have been lots of walks in the woods with Toby, some pottering in the garden and some knitting of course. I’ve been wanting to use this beautiful hand-dyed yarn for a while and have spent far too long browsing on Ravelry and pondering which would be the right pattern for it and I’m very happy with the one that I finally chose. The pattern is simple and relaxing to knit, just what is needed right now, and it’s knitting up beautifully. The yarn is ‘Honey is Cool’ Falkland Merino 4ply hand-dyed by Ocean Rose and the shawl pattern is ‘Hollows’ by Melody Hoffmann.

Lastly, as you can see there is a new little friend emerging from my needles. He’s a little shy at the moment, having not yet been knitted any clothes to wear, I’ve been really indecisive about what to dress him in but I hope to be able to finalise his outfit from a couple of ideas that I’ve been working on and share the patterns soon – I’ll keep the blog up to date with developments.

Thanks for visiting here with me, I hadn’t intended to be absent from the blog for so long but finding the time seems to have become a little more difficult and sometimes it doesn’t feel like I have anything interesting or relevant to share. I do however plan to be here a little more often, so hopefully see you soon and until then I hope that life is treating you kindly, J x