Sadly the website has been a bit neglected lately, and it's definitely a long time since I wrote a blog post! Life has been hectic here, as I'm sure it has been for everyone in these unprecedented times. As a teacher, I'm currently working from home providing work and support for my pupils online, which has definitely been keeping me busy! I feel like I've been knitting like a demon lately too, projects are just falling off the needles at the moment. What's been spurring me on is that now I'm "knitting for two"! I'm currently 20 weeks pregnant and expecting a little bundle of joy sometime in early October - which means lots of baby knits are in the pipeline!

But today is a holiday from school, the weather's very stormy outside for May, and a bit of work on the website is long overdue - so I've been taking the time to update the shop, here's some of the new goodies available!

A matching sweater and cardigan with v-neck fronts and backs and a symmetrical slanting lace patterns. Both are knit from the top down – we work the neckline in four panels for the front and back right/left shoulders, then join them up to knit the body. Stitches are picked up round the armholes to form the sleeves.

The lace pattern repeat is quite wide, which means the gap between sizes is quite large. To counterbalance this and to make the sizing more inclusive, we worked samples in both wool and alpaca. The alpaca yarn loosens up a lot more after blocking, giving a different range of sizes to the wool yarn. We include sizings for both – yarn choice one gives a more snug fit than yarn choice two if you are undecided which to pick. Don’t feel you must use either wool or alpaca either, try different needle sizes to get the gauge of either yarn. The Dairsie Cardigan sample photographed was knit in a wool yarn, and the sister pattern Dairsie Sweater was knit with the alpaca. They were both worked in the smallest size and are pictured on a model with a 34”/85 cm bust.

You can purchase the sweater pattern here, and the cardigan pattern here!

A pair of quick to knit hand warmers. These mitts are something a little bit special – the symmetrical lace patterns look super complicated, but are actually very straightforward. They knit up fast in beautiful hand-dyed yarn, making them great gifting material for a knitworthy friend – or a well-deserved treat for yourself! Dalgety Bay is a little town on the Fife coast in Scotland, with beautiful views of the famous Forth Road Bridge. There’s stunning walks along the Fife coastal path, but with the wind whipping off the North Sea your hands will definitely need a little something extra to keep them toasty!

Purchase the pattern here!

Zero Hour Knits is a collection of patterns intended to be knitted for last minute gifts.
All the patterns are worked with bulky yarn held double, making them lightening fast to knit. Any one of the patterns could easily be knitted in a single evening.
It comprises patterns for a hat, cowl, slippers and a hot water bottle cozy - all are unisex and all the garments come in three sizes. There’s surely something for everyone!

Here's the links to purchase patterns for the hat, cowl, slippers, hot water bottle cozy and the ebook with all four patterns!

Our latest knitting pattern is now available to download! Chance Inn Cardigan is a lightweight Summer cardigan with a stunning lace yoke. Inspired by a traditional Estonian floral lace pattern, this cardigan is a real showstopper, perfect for a special occasion.

This cardigan is worked from the top down with a yoked construction. We work the lace yoke, then divide stitches for body and sleeves, leaving stitches for the sleeves on waste yarn. We work the body down from armpit to hem with waist shaping, and finish with a few rows of twisted ribbing. We pick up stitches at the fronts for a neat edging, also in twisted rib. Then we work sleeves from armpit down to cuff. There's no seaming - it's all worked in one piece. The pattern contains both charts and written instructions for the lace section, as well as instructions for all the lace stitches required. This pattern is written for eight sizes, to fit busts from 30 - 60"/75 - 150 cm. We recommend the gorgeous but hardwearing hand dyed "Tough Sock" yarn from the Uncommon Thread, shown in colourway "Habitat", but any sock yarn that gets gauge will be just fine!

It's available to download from our website here.

Here's the nitty gritty:

Yarn: The Uncommon Thread Tough Sock
Colourway Habitat (80% Superwash Bluefaced Leicester Wool, 20% Nylon)                                   
 366 m/400 yds per 100 g
600 (700, 900, 1100, 1300, 1500, 1700, 1900) yds
550 (650, 850, 1000, 1200, 1400, 1600 1800) m
 
Dimensions (Imperial):
To fit bust 30-32 (34-36, 38-40, 42-44, 46-48, 50-52, 54-56, 58-60)”
Across back armpit to armpit: 16 (18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30)”
Upper sleeve circumference: 12 (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)”
Yoke depth: 6.5 (6.5, 7.5, 7.5, 8.5, 8.5, 9.5, 9.5)”
Sleeve Length: 13 (13, 14, 14, 15, 15, 15, 15)”
Length Armpit to Hem: 9.5 (10.5, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 15)”
 
Dimensions (Metric):
To fit bust 75-80 (85-90, 95-100, 105-110, 115-120, 125-130, 135-140, 145-150) cm
Across back armpit to armpit: 40 (45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70, 75) cm
Upper sleeve circumference: 30 (32.5, 35, 37.5, 40, 42.5, 45, 47.5) cm
Yoke depth: 16 (16, 18.5, 18.5, 21, 21, 23.5, 23.5) cm
Sleeve Length: 32.5 (32.5, 35, 35, 37.5, 37.5, 37.5, 37.5) cm
Length Armpit to Hem: 22.5 (25, 27.5, 30, 32.5, 35, 37.5, 37.5) cm
 
Needles: 4 mm/US 6 75 cm/30” circular needle
 
Gauge: 21 sts and 30 rows = 4”  in stocking stitch after blocking
 
Extras: Tapestry needle, waste yarn in a contrasting colour

We’re just back from a lovely week away in the Cairngorms. The holiday itself was great, but in knitting terms there’s been a few ups and downs! One of my very best friends has asked me to knit her a cardigan for her wedding. She liked my, Epsilon Cardigan Knitting Pattern so I’ve used the same kind of construction but amped up the lace a bit. I made a huge swatch to test that the lace worked out, but didn’t include much stockinette. How I have paid for that mistake! The gauge in my calculations was off by half a stitch in the “worked flat” sections, and by considerably more when worked in the round.

I think every knitter has probably gone through that denial of knitting a garment, especially with lace, and knowing it’s going to be the wrong size, but just thinking “it’ll all work out when I block it”. Blocking does not solve everything – it looked lovely but didn’t fit. So a week ago I had to bite the bullet and frog the stockinette. All of it. In 4ply yarn.

I’m a maths teacher, and I’m constantly saying to the kids that making mistakes is fine, you just need to learn from them. No need to get stressed, just go through it again and fix it. Maybe that has sunk in for me too, because to be honest, it was all pretty quick and painless to reknit. Being on holiday definitely helped, and we had a few bad weather days so I just curled up with a good book and my knitting and got through it.

We did manage to get lots of really nice walks in too. We’ve got a rescue Jack Russell Terrier who is very high energy so it was a real treat for her to get lots of good long hikes. The area round Aviemore is absolutely stunning too. We mainly kept to the footpaths near Loch Morlich, but every path you go down is absolutely stunning. Here’s a few highlights from the many, many photos:

And by the time we got back home, the cardigan was ready to block. Looking much better this time round! I'm writing the pattern up this week, so it should hopefully be tech edited and ready to purchase soon - I'll keep you posted!

The first week of Spring seems like a good day for a garden update! We've now got a lot of fruit growing, as well as the beginnings of a few borders for flowers,  some seedlings are starting to sprout and there are lots of things in pots waiting for a permanent home.

The anemone above is part of a beautiful bulb collection from my favourite online gardening centre, Crocus. It's got lovely rich purple anemones, unusual blue and white dappled hyacinths and green and pink tulips - cannot wait for them to come into flower!

I've planted the largest border in the garden with fruit - four dwarf fruit trees in a row with bushes growing in between. My top garden planning tip is to do all your designing OneNote -  I've got a Lenovo Yogabook with a stylus that is the best for planning - all my knitting designs are planned out in OneNote and then it all syncs to your phone so it's super handy when you're out and about. Here's the plan for the fruit border and some pictures showing how it's all coming along:

Over to the right there's a wee seating area with two borders either side. I explained how I dug in the terraces in my last garden blogpost. I've put in a few bits and bobs - a winter hellebore, a rose bush and a honeysuckle in one and in the other there's currently a black elderflower which I'm trying to encourage to form a tree rather than a shrub, some omphalodes from my Mum's garden and a winter honesuckle which will be trained up the arch. The winter honeysuckle is called "fragrantissima" and it has the loveliest scent when you brush past it. There's a pink climbing rose at the other end, so I'm hoping there'll be flowers all year round.

There's some little seedlings starting to come through too -  the raised beds are almost all filled and there's some cima di rapa coming through as well as some early peas. I buy a lot of my veg seed from the Real Seed Company - they've got an amazing variety of heritage plants and the best part is you can save seed from all of them - no F1 hybrids! In the potting shed there's lots of little plug plants building up a bit of strength too. Lots of things in pots waiting to go into the front garden too. We're having the roof redone and there'll be scaffolding up next week so I can't plant out just yet, but there's a little red lilac, some scented peonies and a couple of little phildelphus bushes ready to go - you can maybe spot my little canine helper too!

Here's the gritty details:

For Suilven Cowl:
Yarn: Juniper Moon Herriot Fine (4ply)
Colourway Travertine (75% Alpaca 25% Nylon, 422 m/461 yds per 100 g)
1 (2) 100 g skeins = 422 m/461 yds (844 m/922 yds).
 
Dimensions: 75cm/30” (120 cm/47”) around, 38 cm/15” deep for both sizes.


and for the Suilven Hat:
Yarn: Juniper Moon Herriot Fine (4ply)
Colourway Travertine (75% Alpaca 25% Nylon, 422 m/461 yds per 100 g)
One 100 g skeins = 422 m/461 yds, with plenty of yarn left over.
 
Dimensions: Smaller size stretches to fit heads up to 54 cm/21.5” around. Larger size stretches to fit heads 55 cm/22” around and up.


and for both:
Needles: 4 mm/US 6  75 cm/30” circular needle
 
Gauge: 16 sts and 28 rows = 10cm in stocking stitch after blocking.
 
Extras: Tapestry needle for weaving in loose ends, one stitch marker.

Patterns include both charts and written instructions for the lace pattern. You should be able to make a hat and smaller size of cowl from a single skein and you can make a larger cowl with a hat using two skeins.

The blog has been a bit quiet lately, but I promise I have a good excuse - we moved house in the winter! Our new house is so lovely, with a real cottage-y feel but with a handy location in Glasgow. I have never had a garden in my adult life, and it has been an absolute joy to have an outdoor space to call my own. The previous owners however, don't seem to have found much joy in the garden! There were two lawns which are in pretty bad nick, two beds filled with the dreaded leylandii, and everywhere else was either slabbed or gravelled over. Here is the groundwork completed so far to transform it into a lush and verdant oasis in the city!

The first job was to clear a large bed at the bottom of the lawn. There was a layer of bark, then membrane, then gravel, followed by more membrane. This part of the garden is down a steep, narrow set of steps, so everything needed to be removed by hand in a bucket. My arms have never looked so toned! They soil is heavy clay and it was pretty compacted, so I dug through a few bags of manure and forked it all over pretty thoroughly. I'm using this as a fruit bed - I've bought dwarf apple, pear, plum and cherry trees (all self fertile because there's not much room for additional trees), as well as raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb, blueberries, gooseberries and honeyberries - roll on the summer! I then mulched around the new plants with the bark that was originally on the bed. Just in case you're in the UK, I bought all the fruit trees and bushes from Marshalls Seeds, they're always good quality plants at a good price. I run the garden in the school I work at as well and Marshalls are really good for selling e.g. 30 packs of seeds at a discount.

The next job was digging terraces into a patch of gravel. I dug in three layers - a bed at the top and the bottom and a gravel area for seating in the middle. This is south facing, so it'll be a lovely spot to sit out in the summer. I cleared out gravel from the top and bottom and leveled off the soil, then dug a couple of trenches and put in willow lawn edging to keep the three levels separate. For the middle seating section, I pushed all the gravel into the middle, dug out soil from the top and moved it down to the bottom of this section, then spread gravel over it and raked it all level. I bought plants for the two beds mainly from Crocus, who have really the most beautiful and unusual flowers. I'm going for a bit of a modern cottage garden theme, with roses, hellebores, astrantia, campanula, hostas and a lovely black elderflower tree. I also put in an arch across from the bottom bed to the fruit bed, with a climbing rose and a winter honeysuckle. Now I just can't wait for it all to start flowering!

I've also put in raised beds for growing veg at the bottom of the garden. I did think about digging up the slabs, but there's no way I could do that myself - I might put some fancy slate between the beds to make it look a bit more classy. I got the raised beds from Yorkshire Timber Products on ebay who were absolutely fantastic for both quality and price. I did a lot of research to try to find a good supplier and would definitely recommend these guys to anyone. You do need to build the beds yourself, but I had literally never used a drill in my life and I managed it fine! I reused some of the membrane from the fruit bed to line them, and then put a load of gravel (also reused from various beds) in the bottom for drainage. I bought veg specific topsoil from topsoilshop.co.uk, and am gradually shovelling my way through four tonnes of soil. We've moved quite far away from the nearest gym, but it seems like that is not going to be a big problem!

This is only part one of hopefully many, and there is still lots to do in the garden. Let me know in the comments if you have had a similar experience transforming your garden, or if you have any tips and advice for me!

A chunky, textured, winter warmer classic earflap hat. And the pattern's free - what could be better?!

It's my birthday so it's time for a wee celebratory sale! All our patterns are 50% in the store on this site until midnight on Friday.

And if you prefer to buy knitting patterns on Ravelry, all our self published patterns are on sale there too - but you'll need to use coupon code BDAY18 at checkout.

Happy Knitting!

We're having a Summer Sale in the shop to celebrate the launch of our new website! All the patterns in our store are half price until the end of the day on Friday, no coupon code needed. Happy knitting!!

An oldie but a goodie! We posted this on our blogspot blog back in 2016 and definitely think it's worth a repost here to give you all a bit of summer knitting inspiration!