Busy Knitters

We had a fun photo shoot at my knitting club this week - taking some snaps of our recent charity projects before they get packaged up and posted.

Lots of teddies...

... and lots of crochet squares for blankets:

I didn't actually make any of these (tsk tsk) as I've been working on my big crochet blanket this summer, but I'm in charge of packing & posting them all so I am doing my bit - honest!

Our current project is knitting little hats for The Big Knit (we made quite a few last year). I'll definitely manage some of those :)

Our Knitting Picnic

To celebrate Knit in Public Day yesterday, our knitting club had a picnic and a yarn sale to raise funds for our charity knitting projects.


It's always a gamble planning a picnic in England, as you never know what the weather's going to be like. The forecast for today was for sunshine, and the weather was amazing for the first couple of hours. We did lots of knitting and crochet, chatted to crafty friends old and new, and drank yummy Teapigs tea kindly provided by local deli StanMan's Kitchen.

Then the heavens opened and we spent the next half an hour sheltering under one of the trees waiting for a gap in the rain so we could pack up and go home. It was a shame to have to cut the picnic short but some of us retired to a cafe afterwards for tea and cake, and seeing the non-stop rain this morning I think we were actually pretty lucky with the weather!

Here I am drinking tea while we were still enjoying the sunshine:


As well as drinking lots of tea, I bought lots of yarn. I have no idea where it's all going to go, or what I'm going to knit with it, but it was far too lovely to resist - especially this gorgeous soft green yarn (Patons Moonglow in "fern").

Fantastic Feather Fleck

Oh my goodness, how gorgeous is this vintage Jaeger yarn?


We found two skeins of it in a bag of yarn donated to our knitting club... and I just had to bring it home to take photos of its loveliness!


I love how the label perfectly matches the delicious minty shade of the yarn (shade #222, "Mint").

Famous Knitters

The new issue of Let's Knit came out on Friday and our knitting group is featured:


When we first set up the club Let's Knit sent us a lovely goodie bag of knitting supplies to get us started - if you're setting up your own group in the UK you can join the Let's Knit Local network HERE.


I've not done much knitting recently (it's so hard to find the time at the moment) but flicking through the projects in the magazine is getting me inspired again, especially the free pattern booklet full of "winter warmers". Please remember to nag me if I don't mention having done some knitting soon!

A Mountain of Hats

Last week our knitting club parcelled up all the little hats we've been knitting for The Big Knit, but we had to count them first...


Amazingly our little group has managed to knit 300 little hats from our leftover bits of yarn. I was a bit lazy this year and only knitted about 10 hats but one of our members knitted at least 150 all by herself!

It was lovely seeing them all together, all the colour combinations and cute patterns.


The youngest members of the knitting club definitely approved.


We're currently looking for more charity knitting projects we can get involved with... if you know of any (especially ones based in the UK) please do leave a comment.

Vintage Yarn

Our knitting club has received lots of donated bags of yarn since we started, including everything from basic acrylic dk to 100% wool, 3ply to super chunky, and a whole assortment of fancy, fluffy, patterned and sparkly yarns. We're trying to gradually put it to use knitting for various charity projects (currently lots of little hats for the Big Knit).

I love all the different knitting labels, especially on the older yarns.


The blue one on the top row still has its price sticker from Woolworths: 14p.

Little Hats for the Big Knit

The Big Knit is back! I've made a start on this year's collection of little hats...


I've been knitting these for so many years now it's starting to feel like a crafty tradition. I've only knitted two little hats so far, but have plans for many more... and lots of the ladies at my knitting group are knitting them too, and they're all much speedier knitters than me! Hopefully we'll end up with a veritable mountain of little hats to donate to the campaign.

A Knitters Picnic

It was World Wide Knit in Public Day on Saturday, and our knitting club had a picnic to celebrate.


We were really lucky to have great weather for it and spent many happy hours knitting and meeting all the people who had heard about the event and come along to join in. The local radio station popped by to interview us, the local paper took some photos and some lovely people from a local cafe came along and served free teapigs tea for all us thirsty knitters (so yummy!).



Lots of passers by came over to chat to us, too, and I think we're going to feature in the photo albums of lots of the tourists visiting Gloucester Cathedral that day!

(Many thanks to Esther, who took the photos)

Knit Knit Knit

Knitting continues to dominate my "spare time" crafting at the moment. The boyfriend even bought me a knitting bag for my birthday! It's the perfect size for carrying loads of "on the go" projects, spare balls of yarn and the big knitting book my mum bought me:


Our knitting group has decided to knit blanket squares for a charity project. I'm hoping to try out some "proper" patterns soon like this cute hat pattern (modelled by the youngest member of our knitting group!)...


... but in the meantime the blanket squares are keeping me busy! I've been knitting in the Post Office (it makes queuing much less dull) and curling up with a square in front of the telly in the evenings. I've discovered I can even knit them while watching the subtitles on the Swedish version of Wallander - hurrah.

We've received lots of balls of donated yarn for our blanket square project, including some of this fancy stuff...


... I've not knitted with that kind of yarn before, so it was really fun to try it out.


It was surprisingly easy to knit with, and hides mistakes wonderfully amongst all that fluff, but goodness knows how you count how many rows you've done!

Knit in Public Day

Did you know it's world wide knit in public day soon?

Our knitting group are celebrating it with a picnic on June 12th and I was set the task of taking a suitably summer-y knitting photo for the poster...


The knitting project I'm working on at the moment isn't summer-y at all - a cosy scarf in lovely soft grey "mega chunky" yarn.

It's a great "instant gratification" project as the scarf knits up so quickly! Though I have frogged (unravelled) it twice so far as I kept knitting it too wide (it's ended up as only 10 stitches across). I've never used really chunky yarn before and I'm loving how it makes even the simplest of stitches look fantastic!

Knitting and Nattering

Yesterday afternoon we had our second Knitting Club meeting - it was so much fun.

I'm loving having a space carved out in my week to sit and knit and chat with a cuppa and a nice bit of cake, and I'm already feeling really inspired by seeing everyone else's projects. I invited the boyfriend to come along and learn how to knit, but even the prospect of cake couldn't tempt him... being my postal assistant is probably about as crafty as he's ever going to get!

We've been making posters this week to help spread the word about the group (the awesome photo is by Emma a.k.a. Yumptatious) ...


... and we even got the chance to promote the joys of knitting on the radio!

A lovely woman from the BBC came to interview us about the club, how it started and what our plans are, which was just so nervewracking. I don't know yet when it's going to be broadcast but I'll put up a link to it on the BBC's iPlayer when I can, and if my witterings aren't too embarrassing, haha.

Knitting Club

As regular readers will know, I like knitting but I'm not very good at it. I've never managed more than simple projects like scarves and blankets, but I dream of learning new fancy stitches, knitting things from "proper" patterns and swapping tips with other knitters.

So imagine how delighted I was to hear from my former boss that she's starting a weekly knitting group! The Gloucester Cathedral Knitting Club will be meeting in the Cathedral's coffee shop on Wednesday afternoons from 2-4pm (first session: Wed 5th May).

I'm really looking forward to it. In a moment of super-keenness I even got a book on knitting out of the library at the weekend which I hope will prove as helpful as it looks:


Have you ever joined a knitting group? I'd love to hear your experiences... And, of course, if you're in the area on Wednesdays and fancy a bit of knitting do come along!