My knitting is 'Fyne'

After finishing the Big Needle Knitted Throw I wanted a new knitting challenge. I was trawling through my folder where I store all patterns and things of prettiness that I swear blind I'll make one day, umming and ahhing and it jumped out at me. A tank top by Rowan called 'Fyne' and made using Rowan Felted Tweed yarn...

Great... I have my pattern! On a high, as Fair Isle is definately a new challenge for me, off to my knitting box I went and found the right sets of needles - fantastic! now I just needed the yarn :/

So, a few weekends back I poottled off to the nearest Hobbycraft which have quite a large yarn / wool selection. After walking up and down the aisles several times and to my dismay I realised that they didn't have this highly sought after Felted Tweed. I quickly whipped out the Blackberry and searched for the elusive yarn only to discover that over half of the shades I needed are no longer available! (turns out that I had pulled the pattern from Simply Knitting magazine in 2008) I made a snap decision to buy the closest matched Rowan yarn that Hobbycraft had and be on my way. It was a hard decision as the colours were all different and I wanted what was in the picture.

The same day I started knitting. I did the waistband which was now in a mottled dark grey colour and then changed to the main body colour... la la la

The following day, I wasn't 100% happy with my substitute yarn so went on a trip to John Lewis in Southampton. Yayyyyy!!! They sell the Felted Tweed!! :) and lots of it. Although half the shades are no longer available, the range of colours in this yarn created a kid in a sweet shop scenario and I matched the missing colours as near as I could with the above picture.

I then frogged everything that I had previously done and this is where I am up to so far...

Luckily the colours that they still had in production were the blue for the waistband, the fawn for the main body and the striking ginger

I love it and cannot wait until I am finished :) I'm tempted to go and get an extra of the blue and fawn though... just incase I run short and then find that they have changed their stock :s

What are you working on at the moment?

A new craft

I have had the particular pattern book, Easy Chain Mail, in my mitts for quite some time...

I was passing a Hobbycraft a couple of years ago. I hadn't planned on going in nor buying but that day something made me. Once inside I skipped through the aisles, oooing and ahhing at all the lovely goodies when this book caught my eye. I had never tried chain mail jewellery making before but a particular pattern in here took my fancy. I bought the book, a couple of pairs of pliers and more than enough silver jump-rings to complete the pattern I liked and headed home.

The book and it's friends were placed into my craft box never to be seen again until this week, when with my new-found crafty venom linked with signing up to Monthly Makes, made them re-enter into my mind and mitts.

This was the bracelet that had caught my eye... the Tryzantine Bracelet...

I would say that I am quite confident in the crafts that I have dabbled with but I knew from the instructions that this was going to require some serious concentration and patience. I even had to consult a friend at one point because I just couldn't see what I was doing wrong.

After a quick natter I set off again and my bracelet grew...

And here was the final item.

I love it so much that I made a matching choker necklace too :)