Heart Motif in Laceweight

I’ve just finished another heart motif (I’ve made a few now -really useful for cards with a more personal touch) but this one is in Rowan Kidsilk Haze, which is approximately laceweight.

A Little Knitted Heart Motif in Kidsilk Haze

I bought this yarn to make a floaty scarfy thing which I haven’t started yet and couldn’t resist trying it out making a little heart. I really love how it’s fluffy and hairy! So soft too!

theknittedcupcake x

Horst Schulz – African Adventure

Good Evening!

As I was browsing through Ravelry recently, I came across a very interestingly designed throw in someone’s project page. It was called An African Adventure and designed by a gentleman called Horst Schulz. I was very interested in this pattern, and came across a whole group on Ravelry, dedicated to his work. It is called the Horst Schulz Fans.

On their group page discussion board, I began to learn a little more about Horst Schulz. When he was a boy, he lived during World War 2 at a refugee camp in Denmark. An old lady there taught him to to knit with yarn from old sacks. He later worked as a decorator in Berlin and began to knit in patchwork style, putting little pieces of knitting together in any direction – modular knitting. He calls it Patchwork Knitting. He holds workshops in many different countries, and An African Adventure was created during a workshop in South Africa in 2000.

Many people are making this wonderful throw on Ravelry and it is amazing to see all the gorgeous colourways used. It is really more a work of art than a throw!

I am not planning to start making this at the moment (I already have a throw that needs finishing), but it looks really interesting and hopefully I’ll be able to create it in the future. Hopefully, this blogpost will inspire those of you that don’t already know about this pattern to give it a go. If you join the group on Ravelry, have a look at the notes page for useful tips and advice. There is no ‘pattern’ as such.

Here are some wonderful pictures that dolliewollie very kindly let me post on here:

theknittedcupcake x

The Knitted Sackboy is Finished!

Hi Everyone,

Just thought I’d let you know that I’ve finally finished the knitted Sackboy. He was really good fun to knit, I particularly liked the arms. He’s a little smaller than the pattern intended (the link for the pattern is on the previous post and on the yummy recipes page), but just as cute. Hope you like him!

The Knitted Sackboy

Love from 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

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