For the love of Knitting

It’s a beautiful day here in Tadcaster. Other parts of the country seem to have snow but here we just have gorgeous sunshine which is streaming through the shop window and really heating things up in here this afternoon!!

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Our lovely knitting circle ladies have been trying their hands at a bit of i-cord knitting the last couple of weeks. Using Hayfield Superchunky yarn, they’ve made lots. If you’ve never made  i-cord, it couldn’t be easier and there are such a lot of things you do with it to make decorations or fastenings. We used great big 9mm dpn’s and cast on 5 stitches. You then knit the stitches and push them to the other end of the needle. Without turning, you then need to begin knitting at the other end of the row. Carry on like this until you have the desired length of cord which is similar in appearance to what you get when you do French Knitting.

Using our finished i-cords we made some simple pictures with hearts on for Valentines day.

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Have you thought about knitting a valentines gift? We think our basic ribbed scarf from our Beginners knitting class would make a very acceptable gift for your loved one to wrap themselves up in.

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Another idea would be to knit something and decorate it with a heart motif as I talked about in last weeks blog. I’m still playing about with the knitted motif I did and thinking about other ways of incorporating hearts into my knitting. As knitting is often done for other people there’s a lot of love in those stitches any way and what better way to symbolise this than by placing a heart within the work itself?

These cute heart decorations are from a Hayfield book called Knit Christmas but we all know that hearts are not just for Christmas don’t we?IMG_0001

 

 

 

I knitted a beautiful lace heart blanket for my first baby and he loved snuggling with it. Sadly it had to be washed and didn’t survive my laundry efforts, so I can’t show it to you (must dig out some old photos to see if there is one with it in) but I do love this Sublime baby blanket with hearts in reverse stocking stitch.

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We also have some fabulous sewing kits if you would like to make some decorations for your home. These look great all year round and are very popular with adults as well as children learning to sew.

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When we first opened Needlecase, we didn’t have many patterns for knitted cushions and several people were asking for them. Cable knit cushions were very popular in all the shops and people wanted to make them for themselves. I decided that I would make my own design and I chose a heart cable stitch that I found in The Knitters Bible. I added some really simple cable stitches either side and worked out how to make the cable pattern sit nicely on the front of the cushion. The cushion is knitted all in one long piece with ribs at either end. It is then sewn together so that the ribs overlap at the back and I use some rustic looking cocoanut buttons to fasten it up.

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The popularity of this design with our customers has been amazing and I have been selling this design in kits ever since and have offered the pattern to customers when buying yarn if they didn’t like the colours available in the kits. Many people have told me that they’ve loved knitting the design and some have made multiple versions of the cushion. You can now order a copy of the pattern directly from our website should you wish to make one for yourself.

Whatever you’re knitting and whoever it’s for we know you’ll be putting your heart and soul into it so keep knitting, it’s good for you!!

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