Architecture

I had such a positive response to my Our House, that I decided to have a go at designing a house pattern.  So my new interest is architecture. You may see me wandering around my local neighbourhood, gazing upwards at the angle of a roof, or pondering the shape of a window. Or perhaps peering down the side of your house to see what interesting objects you have stored there.

I have come up with the Little Woollie House Pattern. I was keen to have chimneys, and a dormer window, but have made the pattern fairly flexible. You can vary the number of storeys, and whether you have one, two or no dormer windows.

The main walls of Little Woollie House are knitted in the round on five doublepoints. For the roof and gable ends you knit on two needles. There is very little sewing up, which I hope will please some people.

Compared to my Our House, I have taken more care with the doors and windows, and the pattern contains a chart to help you with their size and position, although again you may not want to stick to this. The pattern also includes knitting instructions on how to make a little bird for the roof.

I think the fun with making a Little Woollie House is adding the details. These are embroidered on once the basic house is completed, and use nothing more complicated than backstitch, stem stitch, french knots, and blanket stitch. You can find permanent phototutorials for these stitches on my blog in the righthand sidebar. The pattern does not contain detailed instructions for everything I have added to my houses, but I hope that the photos will give people a good starting point. I have a few mores ideas, and particularly like mixing the traditional and modern. Perhaps a knocked over dustbin at the side of the house, with a fox looking guilty!

I have gone a bit to town (pun intended) on my samples houses.

The single storey Croft has slightly smaller windows and a sheep grazing round the back, and a satellite dish for those long Scottish evenings.

On my two storey Town Houses I have experimented with the windows: window boxes below, or brickwork above. One house has is a bicycle parked at the side, a ladder, and a little white cat. The other one has large tree at the side, a dove on the roof, and a little black cat.

The wool I used for these two houses and the croft are both James C. Brett - Marble. I found this wool in a small hardware shop, in a rack between various buckets and brushes. I have not seen it for sale in other shops, but I really love how the colour changes to give a natural weathered look, and with a bit of research you can find this wool online. Although any doubleknit wool will work.

And finally what I call the Grand House has a blackbird on the roof, and large tree with squirrel and swing at the back. Hubby, ever practical, says that it worries him as the tree is much too close to the foundations.

I have enjoyed making these house so much, and hope that anyone who has a go at making a house from my pattern will link their project back to the pattern or me, as I would love to see them. My sample houses are off to Etsy, and the Little Woollie House pattern is available on ravelry and Etsy.