Yarn Store Listings

Hi Guys,

We noticed that a lot of the threads in the Ravelry forums were about Local Yarn Stores. So we thought we’d make a page as a resource for people looking for wool shops. We’ve only got a few basic details on two small areas at the moment, but with your help we hope to make it bigger and more useful for fellow knitters/crocheters. It only intends to cover the UK, but if people from elsewhere want to list their LYS we don’t mind.

It covers a few shops in Staffordshire and North Wales/Chester, UK at present but there are lots missing at the moment. If you know details of any yarn stores in the areas we are covering, please comment and let us know and we’ll update the page. In addition, if you have compiled a list for your area and want to add it just let us know. wi

Hope you find this useful.

theknittedcupcake x

New Year, New Knitted Sackboy!

Hi Everyone and Happy New Year. We hope that 2009 brings lots of lovely knitted things. We got some good books/knitting notions for Christmas and are looking forward to putting them to good use! Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas also. This blog has been slacking in the last month or so – we’re putting it down to the rush of the festivities – but it is our New Year’s Resolution to try harder in 2009 (I give it a week!).

I’m currently knitting a lovely ski hat with a spiral pattern in a charcoal and pink wool. It’s not a pattern of my own, you can find it on Ravelry, but I had to adapt it as the sizing was a little odd. It’s knitting up pretty quickly on a lovely pair of bamboo circular needles, but I’m really desperate to get it finished as I’m off skiing a week on Sunday! It’s done in two colours, which makes it really thick and warm. I made it in colours to co-ordinate with my skiwear, so I’m hoping the final FO fits ok!

This is the spiral ski hat in its early stages!

It’s actually nearly done now, but I’ll add a photo when it’s completed.

Another thing I’m really excited about knitting is Sackboy from PS3’s LittleBigPlanet! I played the game recently at a friend’s house and fell in love! For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll explain. LittleBigPlanet is a 3d game on the Playstation 3, which I won’t claim to fully understand, and you run around in a little world trying to solve puzzles with logic to progress. “You” are a little knitted creature – Sackboy -(although I think you can be a Sackgirl too), and you can dress up in different clothes which you collect as you progress in the game. It’s really cute. Anyway, the day before yesterday I woke up with a sudden urge to knit this creature! I did the usual searches for the pattern, but they were pretty useless and due to copyright etc. I couldn’t find a free copy. I frankly couldn’t be bothered to sit around writing the pattern.  However, I did notice that Alan Dart had written an ‘unofficial’ pattern in Issue 49 (January 2009) of Simply Knitting. I was upset to find out that this is generally sold out and that many knitters have been unable to obtain it. However,  happened to be in WHSmith the day before in my local town and had briefly picked up a copy of Simply Knitting. The free gift had fallen down to obscure the advertisement for the Sackboy pattern, or else I would have bought it there and then! So I frantically went back to town, hoping that no-one had bought it! Thankfully, they hadn’t and I secured the last copy!

Sackboy - how cute is he?

So, I’ve bought the zip and little buttons for his eyes and as soon as I finish my ski hat (hopefully later today if I get my act together and stop writing rambling blogposts) I am going to start Sackboy. I can’t wait! Has anyone else knitted a Sackboy? Please share your photos! Hopefully I’ll make some clothes for him if I have time. I also want to modify the pattern to make a smaller one.

EDIT – Simply Knitting have just teamed up with The Sun newspaper and released the Alan Dart Sackboy pattern for FREE download. I have checked and it is all authorised so anyone who’s been struggling to get hold of the pattern can get it from there! Just wished it’d happened a few days before!

Anyway, hope everybody has a fantastic 2009!

Lots of Love,

theknittedcupcake x

Yarn of the Week: 3

Greetings all!

Got a rather weird one for you this week – Possum Yarn! It hails from New Zealand, where possums are a big pest. Not quite sure about all the gory details, but it combines possum fur with merino wool. It’s apparently very nice to wear and pill-free!

Most of the yarn is only available from NZ, but I found this yarn on the Woolly Workshop:

Possum Sock Yarn - Spanish Moss

 

Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s a fingering weight sock yarn and only available in a very short supply. They have two skeins in stock – enough to make one pair of socks. It costs £10.42 for 50g and made by Cherry Tree Hill. Yum yum. But I’ve never made a pair of socks, better learn quick!

the knitted cupcake x

The weekend is over (well nearly!)

Hi Everyone,

Hope you’ve all ahd a fab weekend. I haven’t had much time to do knitting this weekend (what’s new?). However, I did visit my cousin today. You may recall me saying that I made a knit kit for her birthday. Well, she’s been getting on really well with the scarf, not many holes at all. I was actually really impressed. Anyway, everyone’s been giving her a bit of a hand with it so I knit a few rows of it. That reminded me of one of the throws that was discussed in the Mason-Dixon knitting book. If I recall correctly, someone had every female member of their family knit a few squares and they made a throw out of it. This sounds like a really lovely idea and I’d love to do something like that. It would make a really special present when someone leaves to go to university, a new house or gets married. Unfortunately, I’m not sure I have that many family members to participate! Has anyone else made something special like this?

the knitted cupcake x

Website of the Week: 2

My website of the week this week is The Little Knitting Company. It’s a great little site where you can buy great yarn, great bags, etc. It has some lovely ideas for Christmas. There’s a knitting club and workshops, based in Oxfordshire, UK. The site looks really good and is very easy to navigate.

The Little Knitting Company

Accessory of the Week: 2

Hi All,

This week the accessory of the week is the fabric heart knitting bag from John Lewis. It’s really useful for keeping all your needles, yarn and WIPs in when you’re on the move. It’s also good for keeping organised at home. I think it’s really cute!

John Lewis Heart Knitting Bag

 

It costs £18.50 and is available on-line or in store (although is currently out of stock on-line).  You can also get a matching knitting roll and craft bag. Then you can be matching – how neat!

Weekend Knitting

Well, the weekend is here and the serious knitting can begin. I’m currently still trying to design a  knitted cupcake that I like. I’m doing a seamless one, on DPNs, with a cupcake case, icing and probably a cherry on top!

I was searching the net, looking for cupcake inspiration, when I found these:

Edible Knitted Cupcakes!

 

Ok, so they’re not exactly knitted, but aren’t they gorgeous? They’ve been very lovingly crafted and must have taken ages. They’re even vegan, apparently. Next time I make cupcakes, I might try and do this. I think these may be made with marzipan, but I’ll use icing because I’m not a big marzipan fan.

Have a good weekend.

the knited cupcake x

It’s a Mystery!

I think I’ve probably mentioned this before, but Claire and I are knitting mystery projects at the moment. The rules are quite simple.

1. The pattern must be original and invented by us

2. The pattern must be issued in approx. 10 parts

3. The pattern must use materials that we are likely to already have

Every few days or so, we message each other part of the pattern to knit. It’s quite interesting as we have no idea what we’re knitting (and also seem to have no idea what pattern we’ve actually created for the other person!).

We started this project on around the 8th of November and are currently on the 4th part.  I was told I could use any colour for my project, and I chose pink. It started off with an i-cord and then I did some knitting in the round to make some sort of tubular structure. I have NO idea what it might be. It looks like it has some sort of tail or something!

The pattern I wrote for Claire is a little less adventurous but I think she’s getting on OK with it. She’s using a really nice multi-coloured cotton in pale pastels. Hopefully, when we’ve finished our projects we will post the pattern on this blog if they turn out OK. And then we’ll commence the next mystery project…

This is Claire's mystery project for me to knit

This is my mystery project that Claire's knitting

Is anyone else knitting mystery projects or has anyone ever participated in one before? If not, it’s a great idea for a group of you to do – it’s fantastic fun!

Anyway, better go!

the knitted cupcake x

Accessory of the Week: 1

I found these really cute needles on Etsy.com. For those of you who haven’t visited this site yet, it’s full of really quirky and cute handmade things! Check it out!

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=cat3_gallery_9&listing_id=17194633

Cupcake Needles

 

They retail at $22 excl shipping, which is just under £15 so I guess that’s a little pricey…but maybe a special treat?  You can also buy cupcake stitch markers which are also cute!

Food for thought

Hello,

Hope everyone had a good Monday and didn’t find going back to work too painful! I didn’t get any knitting done at all today! How rubbish! However, I did take a good look at our knitted cupcake group on Ravelry, where people have started some chatter about knitted/crocheted food. There’s some good patterns for crocheted desserts on this website:

http://www.normalynn.info/freepatterns.html

At the weekend, it was my cousin’s birthday and I thought I’d try and get her into knitting (she’s 17). I thought all the knitting kits were boring/expensive/wrong colours and so I thought I’d create my own. I bought a couple of balls of wool, some needles and picked up a free ‘How to Knit’ leaflet from my local Hobbycraft shop. I then wrote a simple pattern for a striped scarf, typed it up on the computer, printed it on pretty paper and started the scarf off for her. I called it a ‘Knit Kit’. Not sure if any of the retailers use this name (they probably do) but I thought it had quite a funky ring to it. Here are some pictures of the Knit Kit. They’re not very good quality for some reason though!

Knit Kit 1

Knit Kit Gift Tag

Knit Kit Label

I have lot of knitting things to do this week, just not sure when I’m going to get time to do them all! I’ve currently got several WIPs, including the mystery project that myself and my friend are making. We’re messaging parts of the pattern every few days and neither of us know what we’re knitting – great fun!

the knitted cupcake x