Beaded knitting, it is fast becoming one of my favourite knitty tricks…

Meet Bellona, I designed these fingerless mittens for The Knitter magazine and they were featured in issue 77.  The beaded fleur de lis catch the light beautifully as the Debbie Abrahams beads nestle down in the scrumptious Sparkleduck Spirit yarn.

 

 

 

The mittens are worked in the round and the beads are added using the crochet hook method.  No having to thread hundreds of beads onto your yarn before you start!  These mittens would make a great addition to your wardrobe anytime of year.

It is never too early to start preparing for Christmas, is it?  I know I hear you screaming at me.  But I really wanted to share these with you.  These were also featured in The Knitter issue 77.  They are a great project to develop both your beading and your Fair Isle skills.

I hope you can forgive my indulgence in sharing Christmas projects in February and that you will share your finished projects with me on my Facebook page.

Happy Knitting x

 

A Plethora of Purple Scarves…

Well it has been a busy start to 2015 for me and I realise that I am somewhat behind with updating my blog (naughty knitting blogger!).  But I wanted to bring the blog upto date and share some of the designs that have been released during the past couple of months.

The December Issue of Simply Knitting features a plethora of my creations, all designed to keep you cosy during the chilly months.  See if you can guess my favourite colour?

There were not one, not two, but four scarves featured in this issue….

Luxurious, which is a chunky knit scarf worked in Stylecraft, Tibet yarn.  It is a quick knit and can be worn many ways as you simply use the lace eyelets as buttonholes.

 

Preppy Chic, this is another chunky knit with cables that run along the outside edge, to give this scarf some interesting shaping.  Worked in Stylecraft, Life Super Chunky, this really is a quick knit.

Rolling Waves, this little beauty is worked using Stylecraft, Senses Lace.  The yarn is so light and fluffy I can’t recommend trying this yarn out enough.  One ball of yarn is all that is needed for this cleverly crafted scarf, the yarn is available in some really pretty colours.  I am looking forward to seeing your finished versions of this project.

I am a big fan of self patterning yarn, it gives an instant look of complexity to your knitting with no extra effort.  I like to team the self patterning yarn with a solid coloured contrasting yarn for some extra wow.  So image my delight when West Yorkshire Spinners developed their Signature Birds range of sock yarn.  The self patterning yarn is available in Wood Pigeon, Blue Tit, Bull Finch, Owl, Pheasant and Mallard.  Each yarn has a coordinating solid coloured yarn.  These ‘Taking Wing’ mittens shown above are worked using Blue Tit and Cardamon.

 

Yes you spotted it, I said four scarves.  This linen stitch cowl was a free pattern for subscribers.  It only takes one ball of Stylecraft, Vision DK and is available to download from the Simply Knitting website here.

Happy Knitting everyone, as always I would love to see your finished projects on my Facebook page.

You can download a copy of issue 127 Simply Knitting here.