Colour Review - 4KCBWDAY4

Today's prompt...

What are your favourite colours for knitted or crocheted projects. Have a think about what colours you seem to favour when yarn shopping and crafting.

Only after writing this part of your post should you then actually look to see what colours you have used in your projects. 


Ah, colour. I love colour. My favourite colour is orange (in case you couldn't already tell that from the colour scheme of the blog *laughs*)

I have some gorgeous orange yarn waiting for the right pattern - probably a cardigan, I also love cardigans ;)

However orange probably isn't my go-to colour for yarn purchases. Whenever I buy yarn, I tend to be drawn to greys - I love the colour in general (or lack of colour) and I love wearing it, so I find it jumps out at me for garments...

One thing I know I don't often buy is anything pastel - but I have knit one pastel thing and I love it, so perhaps I should be more open to softer colours in future. In this case, I was drawn to the delicate prettiness of the yarn

Before looking closely at my stash and my finished objects, I think it will be fair to say that for socks, I like a lot of colour. The brighter the better. For garments and other accessories, well, there's the grey thing, but I have a feeling I tend to buy/knit colours in phases....

For example, my Green Phase:

And to illustrate - Socks of Obnoxious Colour

Yep, fair to say I like colour* laughs* Also, there seems to be a fair amount of orange appearing in my sock drawer ;)

For more posts on today's topic, type 4KCBWDAY4 into your search engine of choice and get clicking ;)

Infographic - 4KCBWDAY3

Today's prompt:

Make your own infogaphic to convey any element of your craft(s). It can be just for fun or a thoroughly researched presentation of an idea/finding.


Utilising my rudimentary photoshop skills, I have produced this infographic. Yesterday I didn't really talk about my project choosing process, so this graphic gives some inkling of it ;)

I'm really looking forward to seeing what others have come up with for this prompt - to find more posts on this topic, google 4KCBWDAY3 *grins*

A Mascot Project - 4KCBWDAY2

Yesterday, I discovered that I am in House of Bee (if that makes no sense at all, check out yesterday's post, google 4KCBWDAY1, or go straight to the source at Eskimimi Makes).

Today's prompt is:

Your task today is to either think of or research a project that embodies that house/animal. It could be a knitting or crochet pattern – either of the animal itself or something that makes you think of the qualities of that house... Whatever you choose, decide upon a project and blog about how and why it relates to your house/creature. You do not have to make this project! It is simply an exercise in blogging about how you come to decide upon what projects to make.

Ok, so, House of Bee... I could talk about the Honey Cowl, but I've already made one of those. Black and yellow stripes? Probably not - I don't tend to buy yellow yarn ;)

Although this prompt is about how I choose my projects, the connection to bees did make me think of something slightly different... An ongoing mission to try and identify a stitch pattern. 

How does it relate? Well, it's a honeycomb pattern *laughs* That's pretty bee-like, I think ;)

Years ago (before I started knitting) I bought a cardigan. Once I started knitting, I decided that I wanted to identify the stitch pattern so that I could use it on other projects. The problem is, I have not managed to find the pattern anywhere :(

I've searched every stitch dictionary I can find, looked up every variation of stitch that includes the word "honeycomb" and I still haven't found it. 

Here's a picture of the wrong side - which leads me to conclude that there is some type of slipped stitch involved:

This is a project with no real conclusion - so I'm throwing it out there as a request. Dear reader, do you have any idea what this might be? 

Maybe my project should be to learn more about construction, and experiment with some yarn to see if I can replicate this pattern. 

I took a picture of the stitch pattern against the window, to see if that might make it easier to identify - I'm not sure it helps though *laughs*

Any ideas?!

Choosing a House - 4KCBWDAY1

It's time for this year's Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, and the first topic of the week is to be sorted into houses...

The House of Bee: Bees are busy and industrious, but can flit from one interesting project to the next as bright and shiny things capture their interest.

The House of Manatee: Manatees are gentle, calm and cuddly. Relaxed and unflashy they represent the comfort and soft side of knitting and crochet.

The House of Monkey: Intelligent and with a fun loving side, Monkeys like to be challenged with every project presenting them with something new and interesting.

The House of Peacock: Peacocks take something good and make it brilliant. Buttons, embellishments and a bit of sparkle prove that perfection lies in the details – like a Peacock's Tail.


So... What house am I?

Well, as much as I quite like the look of embellishments, I don't tend to use them in my projects, so House of Peacock is out (which is a shame, I love peacocks). 

I think I qualify for "intelligent and with a fun loving side" but as much as I like a challenge, I also like some easy projects on the go for knitting without thinking purposes, so I don't think I fit into Monkey either. 

Relaxed and unflashy - that sounds like me, although I don't know that "gentle, calm and cuddly" works too well. Sorry House of Manatee, I think we might not be a match. 

So that leaves Bees... Busy, yes. Industrious, sometimes. Flitting from project to project, definitely *laughs* As for bright and shiny things - I've always felt I had ADOLS (Attention Deficit, Oooh, Look, Shiny!)

Yep, I think I've found my House ;)

See you tomorrow for the next topic - a project for my house :)

To find more people participating in Knitting and Crochet Blog Week, click here for a google search of today's tag "4KCBWDAY1"

Spam, Spam, Spam

Just a quick one to let you know that I have disabled anonymous commenting. I seem to have been getting quite a lot of spam comments lately, and although blogger has caught most of them I just want to be sure they're not getting through.

I haven't enabled the "please prove you're not a robot" function - mainly because I find the captchas really difficult to read and would like to avoid them if I can ;)

Working Away in the Background

My poor blog is feeling very neglected of late *frowns* I've been working hard on my freelance business, and I'm still trying to get the balance right.

In case you missed it - I recently left my job to set myself up as a freelance writer - a move both exciting and terrifying ;) I've been dedicating time to writing my novel, which had been languishing during a busy time at my old job. I've been drafting articles to pitch to magazines. And I've been networking to try and build my contact base and meet potential clients.

All of which has affected my crafting time, and subsequent blog fodder, which is something I'm finding frustrating. I write because it is something that I love and I wanted to try and make a career of it, but crafting and creativity is also part of what feeds me and I need to find my way back to that a bit more.

I do have some finished objects, and a trip to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour, to blog about. And I really want to catch up on the blogs I haven't been reading as much recently. I miss you guys ;)

Back To The Needles

After my small knitting hiatus (I had stopped enjoying working on pretty much anything) I'm pleased to say I've been back to the needles...

It's been ages since I took a picture of everything together for WIP Wednesday, but this week I have actually worked on everything that is still in progress.

My Firiel shawl is now past the halfway point, so the rows have started to get shorter. Hopefully it won't take too much longer.

My Reggae Reggae sock now has about an inch of leg - quite a way to go as this is the first sock still, but the colours are bright enough to keep my interest *laughs*

And I'm happy to report that my much neglected Celestarium has finally received some attention *grins*

I'm now ready to start the final round of increases. Which doubles the stitch count and will make each row take approximately forever. But hey, progress has been made (adding about an inch all around), and I count that as a win ;)

Spicy Socks

I mentioned yesterday that I'd gotten a little uninspired by my knitting lately. I did manage to finish my Vegas socks, probably because they involved very little thinking *laughs*

I decided to cast on more socks, using yarn that couldn't help but be inspiring... My easyknits deeply wicked skein:

I figured some obnoxiously loud colours would be just the thing to get my motivation back ;)

Yep, that's pretty loud *laughs*

I commented to cunning boyfriend that they looked like chili peppers. He joked that I was making Reggae Reggae sauce - so these have become my Reggae Reggae socks. For those who don't know, the sauce came about following the creator appearing on Dragon's Den (I think the American equivalent is Shark Tank?)

Levi Roots got his investment and Reggae Reggae sauce is pretty popular now.

Anyway, I'm knitting these toe up, as is my preference, but I decided to try doing a flap and gusset heel instead of the short row heel I usually do on toe up socks. It took quite a lot longer, but I love the effect of the Eye of Partridge stitch on the back:

I like the yellow stripe ;)

So far I love how the yarn is knitting up, but it isn't the most fun to knit with. It's very tightly spun so it'll wear well, but it's not the softest on the fingers.

8 Bit Coasters

Do you ever get to a point in your crafting where none of your projects seem to be interesting or inspiring any more? Because I hit that point last week *laughs* I just wasn't feeling it, at all. Usually at that point I cast on something new, but I was so uninspired that I couldn't even decide what to cast on.

It struck me as time to take a little break from knitting, just a few days, to clear my head and find the fun again.

Luckily, I found something else fun to do in the meantime...

Over Easter, we had boyfriend's kids staying with us for a few days, and I suggested doing something that I'd wanted to try for a while. Luckily they were really into the idea *grins*

We made 8 bit coasters from Hama beads (or Perler beads, or if you use the IKEA version like we did, Pyssla beads *laughs*)

It was great fun - I've wanted to make some of these for ages, and doing it with the boys was a perfect afternoon activity.

My favourite (currently, it changes with alarming regularity) is the Mario mushroom - I think because it is so iconic and the shape is perfect for this.

But then I do also love my Sonic - the first coaster I made. I particularly like the multi-green background. I was going for the first level of Sonic, the Green Hills Zone ;)

There are 2 coasters that don't entirely fit the "old school video games" theme - the Iron Man and Hulk ones. But the little sprite-like figures were just too cute, so we had to make them too *laughs*

With this one, you can see I melted it a bit more than the other two, which I think works really well to show pixellation. I might do that to some of the others too - although it does make them a little wonky and less inclined to stay flat, so I need to come up with a way to resolve that - unstable drinks coasters aren't exactly ideal!

The boys had loads of fun making them and have already asked what new designs we're going to try this weekend. Guess I should get some more beads in!