Happy New Year and Ginx Yarn Linx Party

Wishing everyone who visits my blog Happy New Year!

If you do knit anything from my patterns, please send me a photo, or link the project on ravelry. It is lovely to see my patterns knitted up, and get a bit of feedback.

I have done much less pattern creating than other years. So although I have been knitting, I have sometimes found I just haven't had the energy for the pattern-inventing sort of knitting, which requires a lot more thought.

That said, I have come out with some new patterns. You can click on the photos to go to the pattern.

Alpaca

Vespa

Christmas Elephants

Tiny Elf Clogs

My other main knitting sales have been versions of my car patterns. Seven cars, 1 van and a caravan. So that is probably why I feel I have been knitting. I do enjoy it when someone asks for a personalised version of my cars, so below are photos of some made this year. I have a few more coming up, but I like to know that the recipients are happy before I post about them.

So what for next year. I have ideas for some new patterns, I do feel perhaps I should update the look of this blog, but that seems such a major task I am not sure how to start. I still have the ambition to publish a book of patterns, but the main thing that I have decided to do (and can start straight away) is run a monthly link party. 

Quite a few of the knitting parties where I used to regularly link have folded this year. So perhaps rather than feel sad about this, I am going to try and run my own. 

I don't want to set too many rules, so you don't have to follow me unless you wish to. I had the idea for it to be monthly, and just for fibre or yarn related crafts. (So knitting, crochet, and any other crafts that use yarn or wool.) Please only link posts that fit this criteria. Apologies to other crafts, but there seems plenty of other parties out there for you. 

I will also feature my favourite link/s each month when I open the party for the next month. And if you have linked this month I will send you a reminder for next month. Please try and visit some of the other posts. (I know I have done it myself, been one of the first to link and then forgotten to call back. But as this party is going to run all month, please try and pop back from time to time and see who has joined in.) I don't mind if you link to old posts, so long as they are yarn-related, and a max of 3 per person per party.

Now I have just got to work out how to make a link party!! If you do come and party it would be great if you could mention it or post my blog button (which you can see below) on your own blog. There will also be an "I was featured" button. 

This is my first party (and I am a bit of a technophobe), so I hope you will support me and each other, and make it a fun place to share your projects and ideas.
 

Ginx Craft

<div style="width:100%;text-align:center;"> <span style="margin:5px;padding:5px;border-radius: 5px;border:1px solid lightgrey;display:inline-block;"><a rel=_nofollow href="https://ginxcraft.blogspot.co.uk/"> <img style="border: 1px solid gray;width:150px;height:150px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-cN5kyAVhzr4/Wkf-sVq0QQI/AAAAAAAALFA/WWTxYz0v4bM2XL7kvwQ7Fb09jlQsn2hHwCEwYBhgL/w140-h135-p/Linky.jpg"> <p style="allign: center;"> Ginx Craft</p> </a></span></div>
Instructions: Select all code above, copy it and paste it inside your blog post as HTML

An InLinkz Link-up

Exmoor

Beautiful beach at Woolacombe. As you can see we went to Exmoor.

View from near Dunkery Beacon towards Minehead

This year's holiday was a little different for us in several ways. Firstly we left our son at home - he is 18 now, and was very definite that he did not want to come. Despite my worries, he has not starved and the house is still standing. Secondly, we very sucessfully took my daughter's friend with us, and thirdly it was Rosie's first holiday. 

We had to be careful not to do too much walking, as Rosie is still a puppy. But she absolutely loved some of the country and beach walks we did, as well as having a larger, wilder garden to spend time in. The cottage was dog-friendly, and she did not seem to mind being crated at night, as we could not completely trust that she would not start chewing. Here are just a few photos that give a flavour of our break.
 

Rosie had a great time in the garden

We toasted marshmallows later ...

Walk from Malmsmead, setting of R. D. Blackmore's novel Lorna Doone ....

These are some of the alpaca from the farm where I bought my alpaca wool

View of Dunkery Beacon, and an Exmoor pony

Top of Dunkery Beacon - highest point on Exmoor

Somebody else had made this for Rosie to sit by

Walking down from Dunkery

A caterpillar of an Emperor moth

The cottage where we stayed for the week

Alpaca

I've just looked it up, and the plural of one alpaca can be either alpaca or alpacas. I wish there was a more interesting collective word for a group of them than herd. Perhaps you can suggest one. But for now, as I have no better word, I have been knitting a whole herd of alpaca. This new pattern has now been thoroughly tested, and I am really pleased with the result. My husband keeps telling me that I should have made the necks thinner, but these are meant to be alpaca who are just about ready to be sheared. Sorry about the huge number of photos - I just can't make my mind up.

The very first brown alpaca was made with Bearhouse Alpaca mocha double knit, and you can see some more photos here. I made the second one with the same weight of wool, but this time Bearhouse honeycomb double knit. The smaller cream one is made with Bearhouse vanilla ice 4ply, as I really wanted to knit one in this shade, and it doesn't seem to come in double knit. I just reduced the needle size, and he has turned out fine, although I recommend the double knit on the pattern. This is quite a tight knit, with a small needle size, as I wanted to make sure that the knitting is quite firm and the neck doesn't flop. I am sure that there are other alpaca wools, but I would recommend this one which knitted up really nicely, as is 100% pure alpaca.

I just love alpacas. I have sat and watched a TV show about some alpacas near Oxford, which shows them giving birth. I definitely want to go on visit the alpaca farm where this wool came from on our next visit to Devon. I have some oddments left of all the wool, so may have a go at a piebald alpaca.

The pattern is available on ravelry, Etsy, and LoveKnitting. This was just one of those projects that I felt compelled to do.

 

"You Gotta Have A Dream ...."

I truly believe the lyrics of this song, you do have to have a dream. So I am going to "talk about things I'd like to do". My dreams have changed over the years, some of them I have achieved, and some I am still striving towards. The current dream, which I frequently natter on about, is to move to the country. There I will have a herd of alpacas, will spin the wool, still design my patterns, but also maybe run knitting workshops. My husband's dream is to have a small area of woodland, which he will stride around managing. I am not sure if we will achieve any of this, but as I started by saying, you do have to have something you think about when drifting off to sleep at night.

So perhaps I talk about this dream too much, which may be why my other sister-in-law gave me this lovely pure alpaca ball of wool for Christmas. The wool was from Bearhouse Alpacas, near Sidbury in Devon, and is doubleknit mocha. I have been working on this alpaca for many weeks, and in fact this is version three. Number one alpaca was too sheep-like, and Number two was really like some sort of mutant. So they both had to be unravelled. I am finally happy with Alpaca Number Three, but won't publish the pattern until I have tested it out a few times. So I am going to order a few more balls of alpaca wool, and get to work on creating my own herd.

Alan the Alpaca

I would like you to meet Alan the Alpaca. Alan was one of my birthday gifts from my daughter. She disappeared up to my sewing room, and the only thing she said she needed for my surprise gift was some stuffing. (I have been slightly obsessing about alpacas recently, and I hope to show you the reason soon.) 

Alan is very soft and cuddly, and when I asked where she had got the material to make him, she said "Oh, I cut up my dressing gown". I should be cross, I know. But as I was shown the dressing gown with some alpaca-shaped holes in the back, we had to laugh. I have a plan to fix the dressing gown, with a interesting new panel. I could not really be annoyed, as she had been so ingenious, making Alan without any pattern. She has always had that confidence when making things - just to go for it.

Devon County Show

I have so many photographs from my summer holiday in Devon that I have split them up a bit, and will be putting them on over the next few weeks. These first ones were taken at the North Devon county show. 

Here are just a small selection.

The tug of war was great fun.

Have I ever mentioned my secret ambition to retire to the country and keep alpacas.

These ones were queuing for the prize winners parade, and I think hubby was pretending to be a farmer.

I like this picture as much for the farmers as the prize winning sheep.

And this is how you feel if you have not won a rosette.

Have you ever felt like this? This hen just seemed to have too many chicks to cope with.

... and I may have an idea for a new knitted vehicle.