On my recent and extremely enjoyable day out to Woolfest in Cumbria, I bought several knitting kits. I've just got two of them finished - both by Suzie Johnson of The Wool Sanctuary (it sounds a lovely idea doesn't it - a wool sanctuary?).
First up was the Lois Pincushion kit, which comprised the the pattern, a ball of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK and some small strands of yarn for the scarf.
Lois is knitted on 3.75mm needles in two pieces for the body and then the two ears. She's done in reverse stocking stitch, which I think essentially means you do stocking stitch and then sew it together wrong sides out. I added a button from my stash for one of her eyes and then embroidered the other one in yarn. I sewed the two body pieces together using back stitch and stuffed with a little toy filler.
Lois's scarf is knitted in garter stitch from a few oddments of yarn and then tied around her neck. I think she may be too cute to stick pins in though...
The second kit is a lavender bag, for which you get 18 colours of what I strongly suspect is 4-ply, a bag of sequins and beads, and a piece of organza to house the lavender.
The bag itself is knitted in one piece using intarsia to make the squares.This was actually quite fiddly with spindly 3mm needles and the finer yarn. I'm not sure I'm going to be a 4-ply fan in the longer term. Anyway, I put my Clover knitting bobbins to good use to keep the colours under control. I had to do a little sewing when weaving in the ends to cover the holes where the colours were first joined in.
I wasn't sure I followed the instructions for the top edges of the bag properly but decided to reverse the stocking stitch and then fold it back down so it faces right side out.
After knitting the squares, I sewed on the beads and sequins provided at the points where the squares meet with ordinary sewing thread. I sewed the bag up the sides with yarn using back stitch, right sides together.
To fill the bag, I put some lavender from my stash into the centre of the organza piece and then fastened into a bulb shape with an elastic band. I tied the organza further up for decoration with some pretty ribbon from Ribbon Circus in Hebden Bridge.
Finally, I popped the organza parcel in the bag. At that stage, I noticed that the organza was fraying quite a bit and, after considering a couple of options (my husband suggested trying to melt the edge with a flame - visions of an organza fireball), I trimmed round the organza with pinking shears.
Despite me not being keen on the 4-ply, I did really like Suzie's patterns and I've since bought a few more as PDFs to try later.
Melx
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