Friday 17 March 2017

A chillly March morn, so I'll quickly show you another woolly cowl

It really has been a beautiful week here in Suffolk, though today was certainly cowl wearing weather again on the walk to school. Whilst this cowl may be cosy the colour is certainly springlike. Not that this has stopped me wearing it constantly this winter... I love it
 A dream to knit... my favourite moss stitch which took no time at all with this wool and chunky needles. The pattern is the (free!) Marian cowl by Jane Richmond knitted in Stitch and Story's chunky yarn.
This wool is deliciously squishy and oh so soft. I used up all of two balls of lime yellow knitted on 12 mm needles. The pattern suggests a chunkier wool and 15 mm needles, so mine is just a chunky cowl as opposed to the super bulky cowl of the original
I would love to make myself many more using some other gorgeous Stitch and Story colours. The only negative thing about knitting this was Mr R asking if I could make less noise. Apparently those chunky wooden needles are just too click clacky. Small price to pay I say for such deliciousness.

Monday 6 March 2017

Cosy cowl

It may be March, yet there is still a definite need for cosiness and these cowls are just the thing. I first saw the pattern for the Carloway cowl in issue 83 of Inside Crochet and it was one of those must-make-this-right-away makes. The colours of the original, the fluffiness of the alpaca, but most of all the shape - this is a tight fitting, sturdy cowl which stands up and covers ears with no danger of flopping down.

A quick pop to the local yarn shop later, and I had some Ella Rae cozy alpaca
The colours are natural, teal and grey. This is an oh so soft baby alpaca blend with actually a large proportion of acrylic but without a hint of squeakiness. So I set to and made myself a cowl
 Which I loved so much for its cosiness and ability to stay up around my ears that I decided to make one for my sister's birthday too
 Mr R recognised just how snug I was looking in mine on a particularly chilly walk to school sometime before Christmas and said that he would very much like one. But not in those colours. So, armed with more suitable charcoal Debbie Bliss cashmerino aran
 I made my third, manly version for Mr R's Christmas present.  I still do love those original colours, so maybe there will be a fourth one sometime...


Friday 3 March 2017

A collection of coffee pot cosies

Because all coffee pots deserve to be cosy. Here are ours in their wintertime cosies
 A pattern used before here and here. Oh, they look remarkably similar. The pattern is Cafetière Coffee Cosy from Jenny Lord's Purls of Wisdom. This is an easy pattern to adapt according to dimensions of coffee pot in need of cosying by changing the number of repeats. After the first cosy knitted I chose not to include the button loops, instead just poking the buttons through a gap in the stitches.

The next is one made for the other Mrs Robinson as a Christmas gift - the other Mr Robinson isn't such a fan of coffee, so a mini coffee pot parcelled up with some delicious coffee seemed just the thing. Again, the wool is from the basket (so satisfying) and is Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift held double with sock yarn left over from making Em's socks
And then I made some more because the teeny leftover balls of Spindrift had been in the basket for too long and because coffee pots also need more springlike cosies. I patiently explained to Mr R that it is perfectly reasonable to have seasonal cosies for our coffee pots. And a great reason to put pink buttons with that blue wool