Magpielly

FO Friday: Selkie

Filed under: FO Friday — Tags: Hats, Lanaloft Sport, other-peeps-patterns — Elly @ 10:46 am on April 19, 2013

I loved knitting this pattern! Selkie by Woolly Wormhead, is available as a standalone pattern or from her book Playful Woolly Toppers. I knit the smallest size in Lanaloft Sport in Manhattan Mist (sadly discontinued now), and the gorgeous Buoyant Blue.

Selkie on the side

I haven’t got a model to hand for this size, so some careful balancing of a bowl and some treacle tins are my stand-in.

Selkie from the front

I made the pompom using Eskimimi’s Fork Tutorial – which is a great way to do it, no faffing about with cardboard circles etc.

Selkie Awesome Pompom

I love how it fluffs up. It’s a single ply wool yarn so the fibres unwind a bit once they’ve been cut, and some brisk washing and drying felts them slightly for the result you can see here. I’ve heard putting pompoms in a dryer fluffs them up amazingly, but I did mine by hand and I like the result.

The only modification I did was to add some cords to attach to the fear flaps.

Pattern, yarn and FO: top marks!

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FO Friday: Fella’s hat

Filed under: FO Friday,just chatting — Tags: Hats, Nature Spun, Nature Spun Worsted, Personal crafting, Podcasts — Elly @ 10:35 am on March 15, 2013

It’s a simple hat. Ribbing and decreases and done. Probably done very similarly many times, so although I’ll be writing it up as a pattern, it will be a freebie thank-you pattern when you buy Nature Spun Worsted from me. Fella obviously likes it because it’s become his go to hat since I gave it to him. (It’s in ‘Enchanted Forest‘ if you were curious). And so:

Fella’s hat – from the back

and…

“Gaze off manfully into the distance, will you? Channel Mr. Darcy or something.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Just look over there.”
“This hebe needs trimming.”
“Oh for f-”

Yep, if you follow me on Twitter and have wondered what The Fella looks like: that’s mah man! And in the background: that’s mah… hebe that needs the dead bits trimming off. It seems to need a lot of that regularly. Am I doing it wrong?! Or is that just the way of the hebe? (I do love that word. HEE-BEE.)

Some links I loved this week: Tara‘s post on Following your Enthusiasm (a much needed reminder), and relatedly (is that word?), this article cracked me up and added fuel to my fire (YOU’RE AN ANIMAL!!).

Also: The Crochet Project is launching soon!! Eeep! Maybe it will be launched by the time you read this, they are just waiting for Ravelry to sort out their publisher account. In case you haven’t heard, The Crochet Project is run by the oh-so-talented (and enthusiastic) Kat Goldin and Joanne Scrace. Their aim is to bring “beautiful, modern crochet patterns to the online market”. Think Twist Collective for crochet. And based in Britain! (Hooray! Although the patterns will use American terminology, because that’s the largest market. Not sure if they are going to run UK versions too, but it’s easy enough to ‘translate’ between US/UK). I have a cloche pattern in this issue, which I will blog about next week, once this issue is live.

And to polish off the week, here are my listens for the previous week:

Listens 2013 03 10 7hrs 30

Highlights were Gulliver’s Travels from Craftlit, and Bonecruncher, from Flash Pulp. And now, following my enthusiasm, I’m going to finish up a test-knit for a fellow designer. I hope I can share just a snippet with you next week, because I love the colours of it. But for now, I hope you have a great weekend, my fellow Magpie!

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FO Friday: Socks

Filed under: FO Friday,Special Orders — Tags: Socks, Wildfoote Sock — Elly @ 12:46 pm on November 9, 2012

Finally I get to join in with Tami’s FO Friday again, it feel like it’s been a while since I’ve had anything to share. These 2 pairs of been sat on the side for a while now. They were going to be used for a sock e-book that I’m writing using Wildfoot sock yarn, but I’ve decided that the marled yarn (Elderberry and Forget-Me-Not) don’t show the stitch patterns well enough. OH, NO!! Two more pairs of socks for me

Forget Me Not Socks

Elderberry Socks

Speaking of socks, I’ve just opened a new sock club! This one is yarn only, and you get 6 skeins (enough for 3 pairs of adult-sized socks) in one package. One for every month in a season. You can pick your colours, or be surprised – normally I will choose one plain dark colour, one plain bright colour and one marled colour for you. The signs up for this month close tomorrow – but you can sign up every month – for more info, see here.

And finally Special Orders close tomorrow as well, so why not go shopping for some Brown Sheep yarn? Lamb’s Pride? Nature Spun Sport? (My current favourite!) Doctor Who scarves seem to be getting popular again, I’ve had a few orders for the yarn as suggested on this site!

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FO Friday – Zitch Socks

Filed under: Clubs,Design Process,FO Friday,Techniques — Tags: Socks, Solid Sock Club 2012 — Elly @ 12:43 pm on August 3, 2012

Is FO Friday a cheat when you have finished the FO a while ago? Well, I’ll just have to cheat this time, because I couldn’t show you this FO until now. It is my sock design for the Magpielly Solid Sock Club (sign-ups are closed, but I’ll be running another one, watch this space!).

Here are my Zitch Socks, in Brown Sheep Wildfoote Luxury Sock Yarn.

Zitch Socks in Lime Deco

They feature a round toe and a heel flap, (I talked about the texture for this heel flap in this post). The stitch pattern is a fairly easy one to remember once you’ve worked it a few times and found it’s rhythms. Once past the heel it’s a quick whizz down to the toe.

I really like the round toe, I found it much more enjoyable than the usual decrease-at-the-sides-every-other-round-then-kitchener-shut tow, they seem to really drag on, and then you have to work the kitchener stitch. I don’t mind kitchener stitch so much, but it does get in the way of the *wave in the air “finished sock!” flourish*.

A couple of resources that might be useful when knitting this pattern:

Youtube video of Eunny Jang demonstrating how to work twisted stitches without a cable needle (there are a LOT of twisted stitches in this pattern!)
I use the alternate cable cast on as shown in this pdf tutorial (second one) by the super Woolly Wormhead.

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News: pattern, group and meet-up

Filed under: FO Friday,just chatting,News — Tags: Knit Now, Lanaloft Sport, magazine — Elly @ 5:59 pm on February 3, 2012

1: My latest pattern release, Raindrop Slouch can be found in Knit Now issue 5. It takes one ball of Lanaloft Sport, and the sample shown is in Buoyant Blue!

2: I’ve started a ravelry group for Magpielly, drop by and say hello!

3: I’m looking for test-knitters for my patterns – see the group for more details!

4: I’ll be in Manchester tomorrow at the Knit Now meet up at Purl City (meeting first in Sugar Junction at 1pm) – See you there?

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FO Friday

Filed under: FO Friday,just chatting — Elly @ 12:27 pm on October 7, 2011

Another first for this week – my first FO Friday post – thanks to Tami and her Amis for these ideas

Today’s FO is my first pair of finished socks for Socktober. These are the ones I posted about a week ago. Oddly enough these are also in a Brown Sheep yarn (it is a coincidence, I swear ) – Wildfoote Luxury Sock yarn, in the Rhapsody colourway. I can’t remember where I bought it, but it was several years ago.

Toasty feet!

I started these socks on the knitting machine about a year ago – got the ‘body’ of the sock done, then abandoned them, toeless and cuffless. Well I cranked out the ribbing while watching Hanna the other day (not bad, fab performance as ever by Ms Blanchett!), and finished up the toes while listening to some podcasts. So, ta-da! Toasty toes I’m halfway through the first sock of my next pair, but I’m not sure I’ll get them finished by next week. We’ll see! I’m sure they’ll be next weeks WIPs.

If you fancy trying the Wildfoote sock yarn (see here for the colours – thinking of getting myself some of that Lime Green!), or any Brown Sheep yarns (such as Lamb’s Pride, or Naturespun to make Ruth’s lovely jumper), let me know before lunchtime Tuesday, as I’ll be placing an order in the afternoon. Just leave a comment with your email address, or email me elly (@) magpielly (.) co (.) (uk), telling me what you want, and I’ll get back to you with a quote.

Have a fab weekend – and if you are going to Ally Pally, have a great time – I’m jealous!

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FO: Nautie

Filed under: FO Friday — Elly @ 4:26 pm on June 20, 2011

I’ve been wanting to make a toy for a while now, as it’s one thing that I’ve never made, and was getting a little stuck for a Project Spectrum project – so I decided to combine the two:

Nautie, from Knitty (Spring 2006) using English Ivy, Celery, Bridal Rose and Black Bear for the eyes.

Look tomorrow for some new Palette Packs, and I’ll be sure to include some ones that include green, so you can use the code!

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