by VioletLeBeaux | Jan 13, 2017 | Craft, Knitting
So for our Blairgowrie trip last year one of my knitting projects was this tea cosy. 
I made it holding 2 strands together, one of some generic mustard acrylic and one of my first batch of handpsun alpaca. Frankly the handspun was pretty crappy but it was one of the first BIG lots of spinning that I had ever done so it taught me a lot about technique. In fact when I ran out early and had to whip up some more, the new batch was so much nicer that there was actually a visible texture change in the tea cosy towards the top haha.
You can really see the difference in my skill level from above to below!
Luckily knitting will hide all manner of spinning mistakes so when it was all done it actually didn’t look half bad!
I did highly regret trying to do this on straight wooden needles that were not long enough and really not big enough. I was so worried about snapping one of them the whole time and this is really what pushed me into getting a nice carbon circular set!
by VioletLeBeaux | Dec 19, 2016 | Craft
This is my second favourite hat of all time. I mean it’s pretty close with the red Entrelac one but I feel like this one should get some extra points because I spun the yarn myself and designed the pattern as well…
This was one of the first yarns that I spun which actually looked like… you know, yarn! It’s an Ashford blend of merino and silk called Sorbet and the roving looks like a rainbow Paddlepop!
Spun up, the rainbow is a lot more subtle and it looks more like a soft pinky purple with a subtle colour shift every now and then.
The pattern is just a simple beret with an alternating YO/K2tog lace but I think the result is quite effective in showing off the yarn nicely. You can still see the colours shift in the light.
by VioletLeBeaux | Nov 16, 2015 | Craft
Another yarn project… another gift! This one I did when learning how to weave and specifically how to weave twill.
Rather than buy a loom I just used an old frame from a canvas.
Then I used a needle threaded with yarn to weave in a 2×2 pattern.
To get the twill pattern, the next row is 2×2 but one over than the previous, this is what gives it that cool diagonal shape.
At one point I tired making a really dodgy looking heddle system using string and pens but it didn’t work because there wasn’t enough room for each of the 4 potential string sets.
by VioletLeBeaux | Nov 12, 2015 | Craft
by VioletLeBeaux | Nov 9, 2015 | Craft
I made this as a gift for Cazz who is awesome and loves Gumball. I did take the photos for a tutorial but it’s been a really long time so I can’t remember the stitch counts etc. I’m sure if you were super dedicated you could count them from the photos though haha!
I went through a serious phase making these character mug cozies. I think it’s because they are so quick and easy to do so there’s a lot of instant crafting gratification.
With some of Cazz’ awesome collection and on a cup which is way too small hahaha!
by VioletLeBeaux | Nov 5, 2015 | Craft
This swirly cupcake hat was made for a friend who was going through a bit of a rough patch and needed some serious cheering up. Who could be sad with a cupcake hat? There were a lot of instructions online for crochet versions but I wanted to knit one. In the end I came up with a method which was kind of a bit like entrelac going round in sections. I ripped it out like 4 times trying to get the swirl to be natural and wish I’d written down a pattern as I was going now!
