Cowl design

Here is the cowl that I recently knitted at uni, I got the yarn (some kind of faux mohair but it didn't have a tag on it) at a charity shop for £1.50!!!





Please excuse the outfit I was painting (see future post lol)



her it is wrapped around its very warm


Use big needles I used 8mm

Pattern:

CO 24
knit
BO


Its that simple!!

Top 10 for knitting designers

Just a few tips for the budding designer out there from the point of view of a knitter;
1. Keep small things to simple stitches- If its hat and below in size I don't want to be doing anything more complicated than k, p, k2tog, p2tog and m1.
2. Knit it up in a nice but neutral colour- like beige, earthy browns and greens, or blue (unless of course the point of it is, that it is a specific colour).
3. Photo any garments on either yourself or someone so people know what its like on people and not on the floor.
4. Provide good photos of any details that appear on the item.
5. Provide a step by step tutorial on your blog or just blog about how you came up with the idea and how you knitted up the item this all helps when people are looking for things to knit.
6. Have a blog/ Ravelry page/ Etsy site- get yourself known !
7. Think about your audience- is a 90 year old going to wear a caplet?
8. How are you going to make your pattern available blog, PDF?
9. Don't start off charging for patterns and give some away for free when you do start charging.
10. Don't just copy experiment x

This is just a compilation of my opinion and nothing else its not a guarantee that if you follow these rules you'll become the next Kaffe Fasset but its just a few things that I have observed from my own buying habits. x

Day 30 - Favourite knitted item that some else has knitted

I have the most amazing hat that I once bought when I was on holiday in Estonia (pictures soon)

Esty shop
I have added my Etsy shop on the the side of the page however I'm not at the moment selling anything all the items are what I have favourited but feel free to have a look there are some amazing items on there (even if I do say so myself). Hopefully I will be soon selling things that I have made from recycled/ upcycled materials so keep looking!

Day 29- Do you have any tips?

Yes I do here is my top 10 just for knitters I will also post a top 10 for designers at some point too;
1.Sign up to Ravelry
2. Start off buying needles from charity shops- or free off the front of magazines
3. Buy cheap acrylic yarn until you know what your doing- it comes in really bright colours too
4. Read as many blogs as possible (including this one of course ;) )
5. You can get thousands of patterns for free!!
6. Patience- Frog it baby!
7. Not every one has to knit socks|!
8. You are only as good as your knitting hero
9.Practice- continue to push your self
10.It can be as small and as big as you want to make it just make sure its going to come out the size you want it to be by doing a tension square especially on big projects like jumpers etc.

Vintage finds

So this is what I got at the vintage fair a couple of weeks ago, (I apologise for the lateness and quality of these photos) any who here is the cardigan that I got for £7. It isn't strictly vintage because it has those bits of ribbon that they put in to keep items of clothing on coat hangers which they obviously didn't put on clothes until the 90's.



Below is a close of of the scalloping on the cuffs of the cardigan and you can just tell slightly that there is a little ribbing on the scalloping as well. If any one can tell me where it originally came from i would be grateful x




Underneath is a picture of the vintage material that I found I intend to make bags out of it at my sewing class that I take on a Tuesday morning. Hope you like it x

Day 27- How do you acquire most of your yarn/ vintage show

Most of my yarn is from either charity shops in Cannock or Lichfield or from the market in Cannock if I have to make a special purchase I always look at Kemps wool shop on-line first:  Kemps I don't know how they manage it but they always seem to have what I want on offer !

Here are the pictures from the vintage fair that I went to at the Fat Cat Club in Hanley :

A lovely woman who I saw in the line going in

A stall holder who loves Hello Kitty just as much as I do

Her nommy things a lot of which I wanted to buy but I had no money

Tomorrow I shall show you what I bought x