Christmas in September

I was having a chat with my friend at work recently, he was telling me about a hat he wanted and asked me whether or not I would be able to make one. I've never tried out following a pattern which involved shaping before so whilst I said yes definitely... I was secretly wondering what I'd let myself in for. If I thought that was hard enough I had to incorporate my own intarsia design too in order to give it a christmassy feel.

 

I started off creating the rib stitich, this was the easy bit and the rim of the hat was soon finished, now onto the hard part... I drew out the design I wanted to make onto squared paper and tried to fit the shaping around it. Suprisingly this started off well, the snowman was actually looking like a snowman!

But then came reducing the stitches. I had to K10 and then K2tog repeating this across the row, this was fine where the knit was plain but when the next 10th stitch landed on my design I thought I was in trouble! Knitting two stitches together on the picture would make it look distorted so I had to find a way to avoid this and thankfully I was successful, I realised I could do it either side of the picture as long as I made up for the stitches added the next time. So for example, I would have to K14 instead to avoid knitting stitches together on the snowman so once I was past it I K2tog and would only K6 the next time. It's hard to describe but it makes sense in my head and the results showed it to work...

 

 

 

I really like it, I think it needs some fine tuning to bring the snowflakes closer to the snowman but that's why I did this tester to figure out what I'd need to do to make it perfect. I quite like the colours as well, this is only in DK acrylic so not the most luxurious of materials! But I thought with it being a tester there's no point in wasting good wool.

 

I think I'm going to try out a few more of these in different designs and get them on my ETSY shop, so if anyone wants a kitsch holiday hat, give me an email at samwilson1991@live.co.uk

And the Etsy shop is officially..... OPEN!

I finally manged to set up my Etsy page today, everything I have made so far has been listed and is available to buy.

 



I've been quite busy making this cushion these last few days, each flower is individually crocheted and then hand sewn together to cover the cushion. It's painstakingly slow work but I absolutly love it! The texture of it is amazing it feels so thick and cosy.

 



New Ventures...

Ive also been experimenting in the world of hair accessories too so that I have some little bits and pieces to sell at flea markets and the exhibitions. I've covered head bands and bobbles in my wool and then crocheted small flowers and hand stitched them together. I think they look quite cute and simple, here are a few examples, let me know what you think!

 

Apologies for the rubbish quality photo's, the lighting was bad!

 

 

I've done a lot in different colours and I'm thinking of listing them on my Etsy page, I will put up a link on here when I do.

 

Exciting News!

With so much going on recently I feel I've forgotton the blog a bit, so here's an update...

 

I recently entered my work into the Knitted Textile Award Competition and was delighted to find out that I have been picked to go through to the next round! This means I will go down to London and Harrogate to display my work at the Knit and Stitch shows and be in with the chance of winning a cash prize. I've just booked my hotel and train tickets for London so I can't wait to get down there. The Knit and Stitch show in London is open to the public from Thursday 11th to Sunday 14th October and I will be there the whole time so if anyone happens to be in London at that time please come and see me at Alexandra Palace. The same exhibition happens in Harrogate from Thursday the 22nd to Sunday the 25th of November so I will be there too!

 

 

 

My Very Own Website

Well I've finally got my website up and running, it's only very simple at the minute, when I get used to running it I will be able to make it a bit more exciting but for now I think it does it's job well, please have a look :)

www.samanthaclairetextiles.co.uk

Had such a great day yesterday at In:Site, I decided to crochet bomb a park bench, covering it in my hand crocheted flowers. I had a lot of people stopping and talking to me about what I was doing and best of all could see a lot of people walking past and smiling at it. The whole day was none stop crocheting and sewing to the bench but was well worth it as I was so pleased with the results. In:Site is going on all week with three designers putting together a piece of their work each day so if you're in the Birmingham area I'd recommend you pop down to Cathedral Square (Pigeon Park) and have a look as the place was looking fab on just the second day, I can't wait to see the results on Friday. I'm sad to say I won't be able to make it down in person because I live so far away but I can't wait to see the pictures. Craftspace is the organisation which has put the whole event together so I'm sure many pictures and videos of each day will follow on their Facebook page; http://www.facebook.com/SamanthaClaireTextiles#!/craftspace their twitter; https://twitter.com/tweetcraftspace and https://twitter.com/WeLoveCraft as well as their website; http://www.craftspace.co.uk/page.asp

I met so many lovely people and had such a great day and it's really made me consider taking part in events like this in the future as part of my career, I better get researching... watch this space!

The finished piece from far away, I love the brightness of it and this is the main element passers by would comment on.

The gazebo where we sheltered from the - very few thankfully - showers of rain.

The final piece close up! I'm very happy with the results.