Ever heard of Three Irish Girls?
It's a yarn dyeing company based in the States and I love the way Sharon, the owner/dyer-extrodinaire, has it set up. You get to pick from a choice of yarn bases and have it dyed in a choice of colourways. And I mean a choice!
There are currently 14 different yarn bases to choose from, ranging from fingering weight to bulky, including superwash, non-superwash, sock and even a silk merino yarn! And there are currently 84 (yes, I counted them!) different colourways to choose from, including semi-solids and variegated. How do you choose with that much choice!?
Doesn't the photography just make you want to buy some?
So, why am I telling you all this? Well, it's because sometime at the end of last year I saw a call out for design submissions to be included in their new 'Lookbook' (a publication that showcases their new colourways including a range of patterns that are available for purchase through their website - click the link to browse through the last one, it's gorgeous!) And can you guess what I did?
Yep, I submitted a design! But not just one, I submitted three and two of them were accepted! So more crazy deadline-designing/knitting will ensue.
Though I won't be able to tell you anything about the designs (I can say that they're children designs and one is a girl pattern and the other is a boy/unisex pattern) until the new Lookbook is released. Or even show you the yarn when it arrives as it will be a new colourway! I think the Lookbook will be released sometime around or after July, so I will let you know about it all then.
PS. Don't forget to check back for the last instalment of 'Exciting News' coming soon!
In case you haven't noticed, it's that festive time of year again.
Which means that the girls are on holiday and I have a-million-and-one things to do and organise before J's three week holiday period off work.
During any school holidays, most of my time is spent juggling between entertaining the girls and finding babysitters for them so I can still work and internet time is always the first to suffer as it's really not that important (then the housework - it's about as unimportant isn't it?)
So please forgive me if I seem a bit absent from this space for the next month or so. Though I do have several things I've made lately that I plan on posting about when I can, as well as a new design I released earlier this month.
I hope you all have a great family time this Christmas and, if you don't hear from me sooner, I'll see you all again in the new year!
In need of a new summer top, I let MiddleMiss choose a skein of yarn from my Vintage Purls stash. She chose a variegated pink called Tickle Me and I decided to design a t-shirt for her.
By the time I could try it on her and decide I didn't really like the look, I'd got all the way past the sleeves and several rows into the body.
It got put in the I don't like you pile until I felt like spending more time working on the design some more.
MiddleMiss noticed I hadn't been working on it and asked me when I was going to finish her top. She was a little shocked when I showed her a re-wound ball of yarn and empty needles the next morning!
I'd changed my mind that night and decided to use a ready-to-go pattern instead.
(I cast it on that next night.)
This is
Hine (another Kelly Brooker design).
But, in my usual fashion, I had to re-work the numbers as it's not written for 4ply.
I started on Thursday and have got this far already. I've done the ribbing on the sleeves, sewn in all the ends and sewn on the buttons which are all the jobs I hate doing when I've finished.
Only the stocking stitch body to go to keep MiddleMiss happy.
(Need some movies to watch - always makes it go fast!)
My big brother had a little boy just before MiddleMiss' birthday last month. And a new family member means an excuse for teeny tiny knitting.
And not wanting it to take me forever to design a special, for-the-new-baby knit that would only just be gifted before it was too small like I usually do, I decided to just knit someone else's pattern.
The free, NB size pattern is written for 8ply/DK yarn but I wanted to use up some of my Vintage Purls sock yarn stash so re-calculated the numbers to suit. Though, if I wasn't such a cheap-skate, I could've just bought the full
Beyond Puerperium pattern which is multi-sized and written for three different yarn weights (including 4ply).
In my defense, I didn't even think to check if the full version included 4ply until after I'd knit it anyway!
Details:
Yarn - Vintage Purls sock in 'Chaff' and Patons (I think? very old, missing ball bands) crepe wool
Elephants - stranded knitting
(my first attempt!) using
this pattern
Buttons - umm, still to come?
Look what J gave me this weekend.
I won't say where he stole got it from.
The wine bottle makes a good vase. It's all I had besides a drinking glass.
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