Autumn Conkers

I love seeing the end results when my patterns have been used. On Ravelry sometimes people link their projects, so they come up in my feed, but on Etsy I sometimes forget to look at the feedback at the bottom of the page, where occasionally there are photos in the reviews.

Thank you to Anne for linking her photo of conker in shell, made from my Conker knitting pattern. She made it to be part of an Autumn themed postbox topper. I feel postbox toppers are a very British thing, but I may be wrong. Happy to be a part of it.

Woodland Walk Hot Water Bottle Cover

I've been working on this pattern for some weeks, but first got in a bit of a muddle with the sizing, and then somehow as usual life has got in the way. My other Hot Water Bottle Cover pattern - The Cottage Garden, is possibly a bit summery, so I thought I would try to design one with more of an autumnal feel. 

I love going on an woodland walk in autumn - golden, yellow and red leaves on the trees and ground, hunting for and trying to identify the many toadstools, and perhaps catching a glimpse of a fox or rabbit. So I have incorporated all these motifs into my cover.

Like my other bottle cover I hope this is a good introduction to fair isle knitting. Only the fox has three colours, but with all the other motifs you are working with just two strands of wool. It is also a nice small project, possibly a bit easier than embarking on a garment if you are new to the technique. You could alter the colours of wool used, or the order of the motifs. If you do this, or even if you don't, I would love to see your finished project.

There is some embroidery on each motif, and I particularly enjoyed this part of the project. Suddenly the whole cover seemed to come to life. Embroidering with wool on wool is quite forgiving, and I have some tutorials in Embroidery Corner on this blog, if you need help with any of the stitches. 

The pattern uses 4mm needles, and DK wool. I knitted the back in plain stripes, but you could knit the back with the same motifs as the front. This would only take a little more wool.

I enjoyed this design so much that I thinking of some ideas for a wintery cover design.  

The pattern will be available on Ravelry, Etsy and LoveKnitting as soon as I have uploaded it. 

 

 

Autumn Garland and Butterflies

After a last burst of summer in the British Isles, it does seem like autumn is now on the way. I am back in London, just until the end of the month, when I am looking forward to returning to Cornwall - hopefully for the rest of harvest. Apples to pick and press, hoping my husband is watering the pumpkins, my son picking blackberries for the freezer for me to make jam, and that the sloes will be ready to pick. 

To welcome autumn and harvest I wanted to share this beautiful autumn garland, made by Jennifer (who also helps me with pattern testing). It is so lovely, and the more you look at it, the more you see. I love the mixture of animals, flowers and fruit and veg. Jennifer told me that there are no hedgehogs in the USA, where she lives, but she put one in anyway. There at the top are two monarch butterflies made from my pattern. It made me wonder why we don't get monarchs in the UK, but a bit of a search on the internet, and it says that very occasionally some do get blown off course, and they have been seen in Cornwall. So I know what to look out for when I am back there.

 

I spent a lot of time over the summer trying to photograph the butterflies that I did see in Cornwall. At some times there were so many, particularly on the buddlea and majoram, but trying to get a good photograph is a bit of a hard task. I probably spent too much time on this. The hand at the top is my husbands, and that particular red admiral butterfly seemed really keen to be caught on camera.

 

Still plenty of time to to join in Ginx Woolly Linx Party for September.

Conkers

I've been slightly distracted from my clothing projects by an order for some conkers. If you don't know about conkers here is a link to a previous post, where I explain what they are. 

I don't think it has been a good year for conkers, and I have not seen many this year on my frequent walks with the dog. Probably something to do with the hot summer, or perhaps the disease that seems to affect a lot of the trees near me. Although it seems that it is the leaves that get damaged, and the trees survive on. But my husband tells me it has been a good year for acorns!

P.S. I just got a message from the lady I was making these for, saying there was huge huge horse chestnut tree outside of her home where she and her twin sister grew up. So one is for her and one for her twin. Isn't that cute.

Just a reminder that there is still plenty of time to join in my Ginx Woolly Linx party for November. Click on the photo above or at the top of the page to find the party. I would love to see what you have been working on this month

Conkers

I don't often repeat posts, but it is that time of year again. When I showed this before there was quite a bit of interest in the game of conkers. So apologies if you have already seen this, or if you live on the other side of the world, and are looking forward to Spring.

Conkers are the fruit of the horse chestnut tree. Finding a spikey green case,  slightly split open, and removing a shiny conker from its white cushion, is one of the pleasures of Autumn. But it has been on my mind that my pattern did not include the conker case. So I have reworked the pattern adding a shell section. So now you can make a lovely little home for your conkers. The new pattern is available on ravelry and Craftsy.

The shell is knitted on just two straight needles and in two pieces: green and cream. So the only sewing up is joining the inner and outer shells. There is some short row knitting to create the curves. As you will see I have made two variations: a half shell, which is how I often find a conker on the ground, or the two halves sewn together so you can have your conker just peeping out.

The game conkers is played between two people. A hole is made in the conkers, and they are threaded on a piece of string. They take turns hitting each others conker with their own. Each player holds their conker out in front of themselves, and the other player takes a swing at it with their conker. The conker that breaks the other one is the victor. The dangers are that you can be hit by swinging conkers, which are quite hard, or being hit by flying shards of conkers when the hit is successful. Hard conkers usually win, but it is considered cheating to harden your conker artificially.  Apparently Michael Palin of Monty Python was disqualified from a conkers competition for baking his conker and soaking it in vinegar.

Then there is the whole business of scoring. A conker that defeats another is a oner, etc. But if a conker beats another conker, it also takes on that conker's score. So if a twoer beats a threer, it would become a fiver. It is that conker that takes the title, not the human swinging it! 

 Happy Autumn Conkering