PDF Pattern

I gave a short pattern for these earrings here but have now expanded the pattern with some how-to photos and made it into a PDF. They also have a name, many thanks to muskaan, Cascade Earrings. There's a link to the PDF pattern on the right hand of this page, or here.

Unraveling

Why am I unraveling my swatch? So that I can work out how much grey wool to dye.

The wool from two guineafowl is a bit more than once round the niddy noddy. There will be 14 guineafowl on each sock, so if I go 20 times round the niddy noddy, I should have plenty.

Evolving

There's a flock of guineafowl who chatter outside my kitchen window who could be the inspiration for my next pair of socks. Though I have designed guineafowls before, for my Safari range of sweaters. I asked someone to send me a photo of her sweater to use as a basis, but when it became clear she wasn't going to get around to it, I decided to start from scratch. The proportions are different for socks, so it's probably just as well to start again. The top swatch is my first attempt. Not bad, but after a bit of contemplation I thought I'd try leaving off the stitches at the end of the tail. Better. The tail is less heavy and there's a better space between the birds.  I must say the knitting graph paper makes the job easier. Last time I used ordinary graph paper and had to do many more swatches before I achieved something I was happy with.

More Flowery Bags

I scaled down this pattern to make a bag for four-year-old Isabel. The original ones I made were very plain, but I thought Isabel's needed some decoration. Flowers!

This is Forget-Me-Knot flower from Little Treasures. It's my favourite crochet flower, quick and easy and not too floppy. The leaf I just made up as I went along.
I made a pencil case in the same denim fabric:

Its flowers are hidden discreetly inside:

I hope it will make a useful project bag:

Back Pack

This is the yarn I rejected for Annika's cardigan. I thought it might work for a bag, rather than a garment. In Ravelry, I typed 'Crochet child's back pack' into the search box and amazingly came up with three pages of thumbnail tiles. Many of them were made to look like animals, which wasn't really what I had in mind. But this Floral Fiesta pattern from My Little City Girl is perfect. The original yarn was a bamboo/cotton mix, which reminded me that I had bamboo left overs just right for the flowers. I knitted an i-chord for the straps rather than the original crochet chain. It took longer, but I thought the crochet strap was too thin to be comfortable.

More Sheets

I'm working on another set of sheets and pillowcases. This time I have a better idea of how long the job will take.

Working with great swathes of fabric is a bit daunting. But whizzing along a very long seam is quite satisfying.

Tortoise Socks

The tortoises are ready to set off!

I contemplated making the bottom of the shell (plastron is the technical term) more realistic, but I decided that would be overkill. So this is just a vague representation.