Tavistock Socks (and Giveaway Winners)

I made a conscious decision at the start of this year to be a bit more selective about what I blog about, but at the moment I just seem not to be knitting very much.

Anyway, I thought I would show you these socks I have just made for hubby. I am calling them Tavistock Socks, as I bought the ball of wool for them in Tavistock market when we were on holiday in the summer. It is King Cole Zig Zag 4ply 1866 Epic. Perhaps I should have called this post "Epic Socks", although at school the children are not encouraged to use "epic" as an adjective.

The pattern I used is called Storm by Diane Mulholland, and is a free download on ravelry. I really like the textured look, but it was quite easy to do from memory once you have done a few rows. I couldn't quite get to grips with doing the toe as set out in the pattern, so just did my normal technique. (Wow, I have a normal sock technique!) They are toe-up, which also seems to be my favourite way. They also had a different bind-off at the top to what I have previously used.  But what made me most pleased was getting the colours to match. Having never knitted socks from variegated wool before, I just wasn't confident it was going to work, but as you can see it did.

Please also feel free to admire my husband's creative project for the summer, which is our lovely new decking. It makes a great backdrop for photos.

Blocking socks on the washing line

And finally I would like to announce the winners of my Red Admiral Butterfly Giveaway. The answer to my question "What were the two mistakes I made on the knitted butterflies?" were: that the spots were embroidered in white, and they should have been black, and was that I sewed the bottom wings on the wrong way round. This is really hard to spot, but they have some light blue stitches, which should be near the centre near the body, and not the outside. 

The two winners that I have picked at random from all the entries are Stacey from The Golden Hours and The Patchwork Fairy. I have already contacted them, but if you would like to leave your mailing address in my comments box, I will get the butterflies off to you and promise not publish your addresses.

Red Admiral Butterfly Giveaway

Photographing some real butterflies on my holiday got me to looking at my two butterfly patterns: Red Admiral Butterfly and Monarch Butterfly. I am thinking about designing a new butterfly, but in the meanwhile I decided to knit and rephotograph the Red Admiral. This was one of my first patterns, and photos were taken before I got my present camera. The camera helps, but I also think I have learned a few tricks about getting the lighting and setting right.
 

This Red Admiral was much easier to photograph than those on Dartmoor. I have also retyped and published the pattern, as I have changed my method of writing colourcharts.  

While looking at real and photographs of Red Admiral Butterflies, I also realized that a they have a brown underside on their lower wings, so in my aim to be really, really accurate have added instructions to make the butterfly this way. In the original pattern I knitted them with coloured wings underneath, and if you were making it for a mobile, where it would be viewed from below, you might still like to do it this way.

I have had a number of trips to my local park to photograph the new butterflies, and as the summer flowers start to fade have felt under a bit of time pressure.

If you want to enter my Giveaway you need to tell me what is wrong with the Red Admiral Butterfly in the first three photos. I would love to say that I had made some deliberate errors, but alas I just didn't look at pattern carefully enough. There are two mistakes, which you might notice I put right in the butterflies further down the page! Could you also tell me your favourite species of butterfly, or if you are a knitter the one you would most like to make? The winners will be drawn at random from all the correct entries. 

There will be two prizes, my knitted butterflies, so let me know if you have a preference for the one with brown underwings or the other. Winners will be contacted on 2nd October. There are no restrictions on where you live. You can enter either in the comment section of this blog, or by leaving a comment on my Ginx Craft facebook page. Also there are no conditions about following my blog or Ginx Craft on facebook, but of course I would love it if you did. 

Don't you hate those quizes where the answer is really obvious! I do, although I am not going to be too strict about the knitting errors question, so why not have a go? I especially would like to know your favourites butterflies. To make the competition a little bit harder I will not publish any comments with answers to the question until the result is announced. 

Vintage Tractor Pattern

I can finally announce the winner of my "guess the next pattern" giveaway. Thank you to everyone who entered. I loved all of your guesses, and even if you were not right, perhaps you have given me some new ideas for other vehicles. I particularly like the idea of a snow plough, so you never know, maybe that will be what I work on next.

So we put the names of everyone who said tractor (and there were quite a lot of you) into a hat and the winner is Janet of Yellow Pink and Sparkly. I have sent you a message, so if you let me have your address (I won't publish it) through my comments box your Christmas Heart Decorations will be on their way to you.

Tractor before the mud guards are attached.

I think the tread pattern on the tyres were a bit of a clue. You might also have seen this post about my visit to the North Devon Show, where looking at the Vintage Tractors first gave me the idea.

This has been quite a tricky pattern to write. There has been unravelling, and a bit of frustration. Sometimes it is just like that, and for other patterns everything seems to just fall into place first attempt. The tyres took a lot of work, and I have had to devise my own codes for the cabling. It is a bit complicated, but I did feel that the cable on the tyres to give a deep tread was a really important part of the design. The other bits that caused me a bit of grief were the mud guards. They had to be big enough to curve over the back tyres, but also not so big as to be floppy. 

I also dithered over whether to add the chimney or not. This was partly because I thought it would need to have wire to keep it standing straight. But by making it not too big there is no wire, just wool, so this would still be safe for a child, and I think it does add something.

My two prototypes are for sale in my Etsy shop. My hope is that someone will buy them for a retired farmer, who wants to remember his many happy years on a tractor. 

The pattern is already available on ravelry and Etsy.

Loom Band Watchstrap

My watchstrap broke. It was a lovely brown leather strap, which came with my watch. But it had such an unusual fixing to the watch, that I thought it would be impossible to find a replacement. I really need a watch when I am at work in school. One of the most important things in a school is to be in the right place at the right time. 

So once again my daughter has come to the rescue with her loom bands. She has made me a really practical rainbow watchstrap, which has been admired and envied by many. (Ok, I admit, the many admirers have been mostly between about 5 and 10.) I wonder how many more posts I am going to do on loom bands, since the Loom band Keyrings.

Apologies to anyone who has been checking to see if they have won my Tyred of Knitting? challenge. I am just a few days away from finishing the pattern, so thought I would extend the challenge to guess what I am knitting to the weekend. So feel free to have another guess if you wish.

Tyred of Knitting? (and a Giveaway)

I've been working on a new pattern for the last few weeks. But I have got past the initial phase, when it is exciting, and it is now a bit of a slog. 

Sorry about the terrible pun in the title. I am not really tired or even tyred of knitting, just this particular project. Knitting cable with black wool and quite small needles is not easy. It would be all too simple to put it aside for a while, but I am going to keep going. I have already put so much work in it would be a shame to give up.

Needless to say, these wheels, which seem to have taken me ages, are too big. They are going to have to be unpicked and reworked. Can you guess what the new knit is? 

Perhaps I will change this post from a moan to a GIVEAWAY. If you guess accurately (no just saying a vehicle, you have to be a bit more precise) I will put you in a draw for two of my Blue Sparkly Christmas Hearts.  You can see them in my shop here. You can leave your guess on my blog or facebook page. No restrictions on where you live, anyone can enter. Closing date 5th November, which I hope will give me enough time to finish the pattern. Good luck!
 

Christmas Hearts and A Winner

Getting ready for Christmas fairs, I have been making some decorations from my own Christmas Heart pattern. I decided to go a bit less traditional, and used my lovely sparkly blue wool, which you may have seen before on this blog.
 

This simple pattern is in my ravelry and Craftsy shops for free, and has instructions for three different sizes of ornament. 

I love embroidering snowflakes on the hearts with wool, but you could let your imagination go wild. There are some embroidery tips in my righthand sidebar. You could also add buttons or beads.  

But my top tip for making tree decorations is to always make the loop twice as long as you think. There is nothing more frustrating than struggling to hang your decoration because you have sewn on a tiny loop.

A few of these decorations are for sale in my Etsy Shop. There are two types of snowflake, but can't quite decide how to distinguish them by name. Spikey and Knotty?

Unusual Uses for Knitting Needles
 
Announcing the winner in my Unusual Uses Competition. After a bit of debate my children decided that the most amusing use was from Mari of MariReads who said:

"Let's see, my 2 year old finds lots of crazy uses for my needles...drumsticks, cat torture device. The hubby has used one for detangling the brush on our Roomba. Yuck."

So a spiral shell is hopefully mid-Atlantic on its way to her!

Thank you do everyone who left a comment. We enjoyed reading them all.

Unusual Uses For Knitting Needles - Giveaway and Linky

Have you ever had to put your knitting needles to an interesting or unusual use? This is my son who borrowed my needles to extract some snails from their shells in France. They did seem perfect for the job.

One of the reasons I find these pictures so funny are that he used to be the fussiest eater ever, but suddenly seems completely up for trying anything new. We also cooked scallops and mussels on our holiday, both of which he wolfed down. Although I like shell fish, I couldn't quite face the snails, so he had the lot.

I expect you will also notice the broken arm. He now has his cast off. Hubby is hard at work cooking something that is not snails in the back ground.

So if you have ever used your knitting needles or crochet hooks for anything unusual or a bit whacky then let me know. I was thinking I would give a prize for the strangest or funniest use. Given my photos I think the prize will be one of my knitted spiral shells. 

No limit on where you live, and I will announce the winner on 30th September. So to enter you can either leave a comment on my post, or on my GinxCraft Facebook page, or even better write a post about it and link it below. I have not done a linky page, so this is a bit of an experiment for me with the software. 

Let me know any of the above ways, and I have decided to let my son be the judge of the winner or winners!

Also apologies for the change in look of my blog. I somehow wiped the setting when doing the linky code, and although I have tried to reconstruct it, have not quite managed to get the same look. Perhaps I was due for a bit of a change.

I am also linking these shots to Saturday Snapshot at West Metro Mommy. Although I know most of you aren't knitters or into crochet, I thought you might find these pictures funny.

The Usual Suspects/Donkey Giveaway

Derek Says "Hi"

Some of you may have noticed Derek the Donkey loitering in my side bar. I knitted him quite a while ago, along with a small Cow and a Pig. The others have gone, but I am so fond of Derek that I still have him, and sometimes think of him as my avatar or daemon, especially if I am feeling a bit shy. (If you like Philip Pullman's books you will know what I mean by daemon.) He is more of an Eeyore sort of donkey (although more cheerful I hope), and not manic like Donkey from Shrek. Like a donkey I think I am quite quiet, a bit of a plodder, but friendly and loyal.

I had some requests for the instructions how to make him, but when I found the rather scrappy bit of paper that I had made some jottings on, discovered that although I had carefully written down donkey ear and leg instructions, I had some very confusing notes on a pig's noses and tails. "Never mind", I thought, "I can easily reconstruct him". So I have been knitting donkeys all week, getting closer and closer to original Derek.

The Usual Suspects

Here they are, the rather unruly bunch.  Can you tell which one is Derek?

So I thought I would do a small giveaway. If you would like me to send you a non-Derek Donkey (I am afraid I still want to hang on to the original) please leave a comment telling me what animal would be your avatar or daemon and why you identify with that animal. I will announce the winners on September 4th.

There will be two winners, but if you don't win, I have put the pattern for Derek on Ravelry, so you could have a go at making your own Donkey. It is a tiny pattern. Derek is only 7-8 cm tall, and the pattern has plenty of photos to help you with the making up.

Derek and Friend

Derek says "Bye"