New toy!!

About 4 weeks ago my poor old PC died in a big way, my genius baby brother has tired despar etly to fix my PC but alas it had to be put it rest, I was so sad, no more internet, no more games.......AAAHHH
But then out of the blue arrived a gorgeous sleek black laptop YIPPEE!!! So I mourn my PC but celebrate the arrival of my new latop....it has opened up many new possibilities...

Life is crazy

There are just not enough hours in the week, before I started working I logged onto the net everyday, but working has meant that, I am now only logging on about once a week, so little time...
Loom knitting definately has to come before the pc or internet, so more of my free time has been spent loom knitting before anything else..
As soon as I get some batteries for my camera, Iwill load some images of my latest creations..
In the last couple of months I have knitted a couple of hats and 3 x 20 inch dolls..the dolls are from the 'loom knitters circle magazine', the christmas doll pattern, my dolls are dressed in hand knitted (needles) outfits (knitted by my Mum), we have a total blast, deciding what colour hair, eyes and outfits they are going to have, the latest one is a peroxide blonde dressed all in black with thigh high boots laced with pink laces..
The hats are, 1 is a baseball style cap-it has a brim like a baseball cap- knitted on the green long loom using the purple clips..I love these clips..another hat has a frilly fringe and ends in a long thin peice with a pompom on the end..
I will definately post photos once I take them...which should been very soon..I hope..

Having Fun!!

Well what can I say, I am sorry it has been so long between entries but a lot has happened to me, namely a new job, it was only suppose to be 12 hours a week but I have not had any less tha n 28 in the weeks that I have been there.

Oh yeah the job is in a bakery - Banjo's Bakehouse - in my home town, it is located only 10 minutes walk from me, so it is truly excellent. I am the oldest one on the sales assistant team, there are 2 bakers who beat me in age but the sales assistant age is closer to 16 than 44(me).

But I am having the time of my life, it is an extremely busy business and there is no sitting down or stopping for the entire shift.

So I will add more as I have the time.

Cheers

Not enough hours in the day!!

There are just not enough hours in the day to do everything that I want to do, basically I want to sit and knit but other things have to be attended to, you know housework, cooking, watching the WWE wrestling, that sort of stuff .

But I will be adding some photos very soon of my latest creations, I knitted 2 of the christmas dolly's that are in the 'loom knitters circle magazine', I have to get new batteries for my camera and then I will add some photos.

To successfully make these dolls, I had to learn how to crotchet (had never attempted before) and how to sew (did woodwork at school, was too much of a tomboy to do sewing back then).
Both of which I seemed to pick up fairly easy, now I can add crotchet as a new addiction.

I am also in the process of hunting for a spinning wheel so that I can spin my own yarn as thick as I want it, without having to pay the earth.
Amongst all this there was a huge autumn (fall) festival held in my town and the 'New Norfolk Spinners' of which I am a proud member had a stall set up, so I had been furiously making hats, scarves, hair ties, small tassel dollys etc for my share of the stall.

I displayed the 2 dolls that I made and promtply got 3 orders for footballers (Australian Rules) I am now furiously working out how to turn the little girls into little boys and dress them in football uniforms and colours, I am having fun, fiddling with the hair and clothes. I will knit the football boots and striped socks as part of the leg and thenadd detail to the boots with embroidery floss.

Pattern for small drawstring bag

Small Drawstring Bag with strap ©2008

You will need!

I used 3 strands of assorted yarn as 1 strand;

1 x eyelash/ostrich type yarn (very thin)
1 x 8ply yarn
1 x Moda Vera ‘Hope’ (fairly thick velvety type yarn)

Use any type of yarn you want BUT you want
it to knit up into a VERY thick solid fabric so
it does not need lining.

Small blue KK loom-24 pegs.

A very strong strip of leather, plaited ribbons, what ever you want-BUT it needs to be VERY VERY strong (it will be the drawstring).


What you do!

Using the small blue loom & the crochet cast on method (or the one you are most comfy with); cast on to all pegs (you will be knitting in the round).

All knit stitches are e-wrapped.

Knit 2, Purl 2 for every row.

K2, P2 for approx 3 to 4 inches, take your leather strip or ribbon and lay on the inside of the loom, against the pegs, then pick up the cast on row and place them back on the pegs-all pegs will now have 2 loops on them - this creates a cuff, which will create the channel containing the leather strip/ribbon; creating a drawstring, knot the 2 ends of the leather so you don’t loose an end.

Keeping with the K2, P2 rib pattern continue knitting in the round until your tube measures approx 7 inches or as long or short as you want it.

Bind off using the Gather method. Close bottom tightly and weave in ends.


Strap:
I finger knitted with 1 strand of the Moda Vera ‘Hope’, because it was the thickest, until it was long enough, the length of the strap depends on you.
Leave a start tail and an end tail of about 6-7 inches; you will use these tails to attach the strap to the bag.


Assembly:

Turn the bag inside out
Using the tails you left on your strap, sew to either side of the bag, making sure that the drawstring is centered.
Attach a bead to the drawstring so that it can be pushed up and pulled down.


And there you have it my first ever original knitted item.


Angela

Hats Galore

I did my volunteer work today at our local tourist information centre, gee I get some comments about my loom knitting, it always starts with 'What are you doing?' followed by lots of AAHH's once I explain and give a small demo.

The hat in the photo to the left was created using a 'Picot Cast On' which Brenda GA created, the pattern for the Picot Cast On can be found at Brenda's Blog-click on the 'Loom Lady' link which can be found on the right hand side of this page.

Once the Picot Cast On is complete the rest of the hat is knitted using the e-wrap knit stitch, once it is long enough, just cast off using the gather method.

The flower was created using 3 different coloured felts and a ladybird button. There are 6 ladybird buttons stitch on the hat in various places.

This hat is a variation of the first hat, I just used a contrasting yarn for the Picot cast on edge and the flower was made from an I-Cord which was from the same yarn and then just stitched and shaped into place.

Hope you like them!!

Loom Knitting:My first original Design

I have never been able to knit with needles and then I discovered 'knitting looms', as I live in Australia, I had to source the bulk of looms and patterns from the USA and England.


After I had successfully completed some hats that actually looked like something, I decided to get a bit adventurous and to have a go.

The result was the gorgeous bag that you see in the photo on the left, it is a drawstring bag that I designed and knitted on a Knifty Knitter round blue loom.

til later

I have Arrived!!

Well, I'll be, I just created my first ever BLOG.

I guess the best way to start this off is to tell a bit about ME!

My name is Angela, I am 43, married for 12 yrs but have been with Ian for 27 years, on the 13th October this year.

I live in a small town called New Norfolk which is in the heart of the glorious Derwent Valley in Tasmania. Tasmania is the beautiful island state of Australia.

We have no children BUT do have; 1 Australian Cattle dog (Blue Heeler)-Rennie (who will be 17 on Valentines day), 1 Persian cat-Mooey (12yrs), 1 Turtle-Turk (10yrs) and 1 Sulphur Crested Cockatoo-Tooktook (52yrs).

So as you can see I have quite a varied household.

My major addictions in life are; Loom knitting, writting stories, my husband.

I also enjoy the following things a great deal; being a member of my local Spinning Club, volunteering at the local tourist information centre, cooking, reading, listening to music, watching dvds, playing PC and PS2 games and making my internet connection pay for itself.

I hold 2 part-time jobs, 1 as a kitchenhand/waitress in a small 4star accommodation and the 2nd is in retail sales, I don't get enough work of either of them.

I don't quite know how I will use this blog but I imagine it will contain things about me, I don't know if I am very interesting but I will do my very best.

I will add some photos as soon as I can.
Cheers.