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. 

 

 

Dove Cosy

I know! Another phone cosy. This one is not heading to my shop though, as I made it for little one's new phone. 

She had her birthday a few days ago, and although I would have probably waiting a bit longer, she desperately wanted a mobile phone. So far it only seems to get used for game playing, but I guess next year when she goes to secondary school, it will be useful.

She requested no flowers for her cosy decoration, so this is what I came up with. I wish I had slightly positioned the dove a bit better, but she seemed very pleased with it.

This is just a bit of a filler, as I am working on a new pattern, which as ususal is taking much longer than I ever imagined. Just a few more reknits ....

My blog has had a lot of visitors this week. In fact more than I have every had. At first I could not work out where everyone was coming from, and hubby thought it was probably spam. (Not showing much faith!) But then I found out that my Starfish Pattern has been featured on Knit and Stitch Collection's facebook page. It's been an exciting few days. The power of advertising!

Minecraft Creeper Phone Cosy

I have been working all week on a pattern for a phone cosy. It is still a WIP, and is proving more difficult than I had imagined. I don't usually post until I have finished a pattern, but I am fairly confident I will get there with this one eventually.

My first step was to knit a plain phone cosy for my own phone, which is proving very useful. I watched one of my work colleagues drop her phone and crack the screen yesterday. So this seems a great idea to protect your phone from damage or scratches from keys and other things in your bag. Fine, but it is not very exciting.

My son is crazy for a game called Minecraft, and I thought this might be a good idea. Even quite small children at my school talk about Minecraft. As computer games go it is one I don't mind too much, as to me it seems a little like a 3-D screen version of lego. I should admit though I have played it, just looked over my son's shoulder from time to time. He seems to spend a lot of time building - very complex castles and airships etc. Some of the fun then seems to involved blowing them up afterwards.  Not so great, but the building process does seem good to me. And a creeper, if you didn't know, is one of the more spooky characters in Minecraft.

Anyway I digress a bit from the knitting. I decided to knit him a creeper phone cosy. My first version had to be binned, as I tried to use 8 different shades of green. Much too complicated, and I just ended up with a tangle of wool. So this next version only has 4 colours. It is still not quite right, as a creeper's face should be square, but he is using it for his phone.

I then worked out how to make the creeper square, and think it is going to work out best to have a row of small creepers as they seem to keep their shape better. It is still quite confusing working with 4 strands, and I have found the best way not to get in a complete tangle is to work out exactly how much of the green shades of wool the knitter needs and cut this off before you start, and just work with these bits of wool.

So here is my first square creeper, and a row of some even smaller ones.

But phones come in different sizes, so I still have to decided what size or sizes I am going to design for. Just for once for this pattern I think I am going to have to be really accurate about gauge, and tension, and even perhaps recommend a wool. Nobody minds too much the size of a minibeast, but a phone cosy needs to fit.