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Author: Leonor

Textile artist, indie dyer, conjurer of fluff.
Eleanor Shadow vending booth at Tangled Galashiels 2024. There's a table in the middle with fibre and yarns in wire cubes, plus one yarn rack on either side and a large basket on the ground
Becoming an in-person vendor again after 7 years

Becoming an in-person vendor again after 7 years

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For those who read this blog but aren’t familiar with what I do, I sell fibre and hand dyed yarns under the brand Eleanor Shadow. For a while, I was happy simply doing my thing of selling online only, until I moved to Edinburgh and started receiving emails via my site from people asking to come to my shop and buy in person.

I can’t allow customers to come into my studio for contractual and insurance reasons and so had to turn people down, which made me really sad. I hate disappointing fellow fibre lovers! This turned out to be a great thing because it lit a fire in me to start vending again in person. Enter Tangled Galashiels, a new fibre festival that two lovely ladies named Naomi and Samira decided to create near the Scottish Borders.

I had been to Tangled last year for their debut and had a lovely time, accidentally buying two fleeces in the process. When I found out they were taking applications for this year, I decided to apply.

 

Instagram post by Tangled Galashiels where I am seen with three friends at the door, just having bought two fleeces and smiling broadly
From left to right: my friends Si, Liz, me and Lisa. Just look at our smiles!

 

Having not done any in-person vending in years, I was slightly apprehensive about the whole endeavour. My friend Liz was super supportive and offered to help me out in any way possible, which included the most important step in this whole thing: transportation. I can’t sell if I can’t get there with my wares, right?

Well, my application was unsuccessful! I was obviously sad, but also very relieved; this meant I wouldn’t have to do any prep and overthink things. I was off the hook for potentially feeling stressed for 6 months as I got ready for the occasion! Life went on.

Six weeks before the event, I receive an email from Samira – one of the vendors had to cancel, would I like to take their place? Panic. Mode. ON! What to do? If I was already convinced I’d be stressed having to get ready 6 months ahead of time, how would I feel with having only 6 weeks? They gave me a few days to decide, so obviously I agonised over it, asking my friends what they thought, asked Liz if the offer of help still stood, asked my husband if he was willing to put up with a frazzled wife and fibre in the flat everywhere (ok, more than usual)… Everyone was super supportive, so I had no excuse to say no.

After replying positively to Samira and questioning my sanity, I got to work. I ordered more yarn and fibre, planned my dyeing schedule and colourways, prepped my marketing and watched videos on festival vending for booth ideas. If this sounds like a well organised me, trust me, this was done with a lot of sighing, swearing and wanting to dig a hole and disappear.

After six weeks, I was ready! Things just slotted into place: the stuff I had just about fit Liz’s car, my husband was my trusty sidekick, my ideas for the booth worked out almost exactly as I had envisioned, and I still had time to do last-minute adjustments on the first day.

Eleanor Shadow vendor booth at Tangled Galashiels 2024. Leonor is standing in front of it, smiling, waiting for the festival to start

Luckily I didn’t have time to feel nervous, I just went into meeting-and-greeting mode, talked to people and was grateful when they bought something from me. Some of the things I thought would fly off the shelves weren’t too popular, and some I didn’t think would garner much attention sold out!

Most of all though, I was so happy to hear people say nice things about my fibre. Being a one-woman band hidden in my studio means I don’t often get feedback on my work, so having fibre-loving strangers telling me they loved my sense of colour or my yarn bases was just soul-lifting.

The event was only two days, perfect for me to get my feet wet and not get too overstimulated. By the end I was exhausted but oh so happy! I loved the whole experience and couldn’t have asked for lovelier people to have met, talked, or sold to.

Now I’m looking into refresher driving lessons (I’ve never driven in the UK and am unaccustomed to driving on the left) and car rentals. I might just start applying left, right and centre to all the fibre festivals!

Tell me all about your experience at yarn festivals, be it as a vendor or buyer – I’d love to hear it! Thanks for reading.

A sample of my own knitted diamond-shaped puffs on a wooden surface.
Diamonds and Dolls

Diamonds and Dolls

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The title of this post is misleading: although there are several diamonds in this story (in shape, not in value!) there is only one doll. Apologies for this, but “Many Diamonds and Just One Doll” just didn’t sound as good a title to me.

Let’s begin with the first, shall we?

The diamonds

If you use yarn in any way in a crafting project, chances are you end up with leftovers once you’re done. What to do with the lovely remnants of woolly, colourful string? If you’re anything like me you won’t bear discarding them willy-nilly, but keeping them in a bag without a plan also seems like a waste… Enter the Diamond Miner’s Quilt by Lucky Fox Knits.

A set of diamond-shaped knits, stuffed and sewn together to create a puffy quilt
Photo by Valya Boutenko

This project is not one to be made in a jiffy, rather it is meant to be an ongoing thing, to be added to as the years pass and one is presented with more little bits of yarn that are too precious to not make the most of. It’s a no-fuss, small outdoors knitting project, or simply a quick in-front-of-the-telly-knit when the brain is too tired but the hands are restless.

I currently have two full ziplock bags of diamonds, not nearly enough for a proper quilt, but slowly their numbers have increased and soon I shall have to start sewing some together to show myself I’m not simply hoarding teeny tiny pillows…

A sample of my own knitted diamond-shaped puffs on a wooden surface.

What I most enjoy about these is, I can look at them and remember which project they came from. It’s a way to reminisce about a past knit that I find comforting.
The best part? My knitter friends who know about this now have taken to gifting me their own remnants, so now I get to remember them in my future quilt as well. To me, that’s the definition of cosy.

The doll

Now to my latest fun project, Billie the Sheep. I forget how I came across this cute pattern, but it was before Christmas 2023 and I decided to buy it as a present to myself. Of course, this cute sheep would need some clothes and luckily the creator Gabrielle Vézina would provide the dress and cardigan to go with it.

Billie the Sheep doll, dressed with a knitter dress and a cardigan, next to a printed page of the pattern to make the clothing

Want to know the best part? This dress comes in a children’s size as well, so if you have a little girl in your life who needs a sheep doll and wants to match with it, you can make it happen! It’s simply too adorable.

All of this project is also made from remnants, the calico fabric I used previously as mock-ups for my own clothing, the threads on her face were gifted by a friend who no longer embroiders, the yarn was leftovers I hadn’t made into diamonds yet. The woolly part of her head is a bouclé yarn I used to knit a friend a cosy jumper and stabilised with some pre-felt (see, there’s felting in this post!). If this isn’t the cutest way to enjoy “leftover” project materials, I don’t know what is.

Billie the Sheep flat lay on a wooden surface.

Have you made anything with remnant materials that you care to share? It doesn’t have to be fabric or fibre, anything goes! I love a good upcycle story, so feel free to share it with me below.

 

Detail of the Turner watercolour
Going to the museum to get the creative juices flowing

Going to the museum to get the creative juices flowing

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Are you subscribed to your nearest city’s event newsletter? If you’re not and crave more cultural things to do, it’s a must. I recently got on board with Forever Edinburgh to be in the know about interesting things happening, and was happy to know about a Turner exhibition going on at the Royal Scottish Academy.

Every month of January since 1901, the famous Turner watercolours bequeathed by Henry Vaughan are put on display to be admired by everyone for free, as per his request. The idea is for people to enjoy something beautiful in a month short in daylight – this also serving the purpose of protecting the light-sensitive artwork.

An overall view of the room where the Turner watercolours were displayed

It always warms my heart to know these events are popular, especially when they’ve been happening for more than a century. The room had a constant flow of people coming to admire the artwork.

My favourite part was that wood cabinet in the middle of the room, where pigments and other accoutrements were shown.

Showcase of antique watercolour pigments and travel box.

Here is what the exhibit label says:

“Watercolour paint box, including Reeves point cakes and lumps of gum arabic [sic], late 19th century.

This box belonged to Elizabeth Jane Peckover (1859-1930), an amateur watercolour painter. It is part of the archive of her son, the Surrealist artist Roland Penrose (1900-1984).

Glass Muller

This tool was used to grind colour pigment down to a fine powder. This would then be combined with water-soluble gum to make paint.”

I’m such a sucker for this type of thing – I love the idea that someone actually used these objects to create art. I like the idea that objects retain the memory of whomever used them, and that through them you might sense their personality.

 

Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy to photograph the watercolours, since they’re all protected behind reflective glass. Here are a couple of images nonetheless.

Detail

Before moving to the UK, I genuinely thought Turner’s impressive golden landscape hues were completely made up. You see, Mediterranean light is just so much whiter that it never occurred to me that these lovely colours actually existed in Nature. Now it’s one of my favourite things about British winters.

Another Turner watercolour with stunning golden hues

Lastly, did you know Turner learned watercolour by copying other artists? This was a most common way to improve back then, and this master was no exception. The watercolour below feels so different from what we’ve grown used to seeing from Turner that it still feels weird for me to consider it a genuine er, “Turner copy.”

A monochromatic Turner watercolour of a wooden shack on the seashore

I hope you enjoyed coming with me on this little watercolour tour and that it might have gotten your creative juices flowing! Let me know about recent artistic outings of yours in the comment section, or whether you have any recommendations for me in Edinburgh. Thanks for reading.

Not for Hélène’s eyes – Christmas “card” swap

Not for Hélène’s eyes – Christmas “card” swap

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This year, our merry (see what I did there?) group of crafters/blog writers decided to do a card swap among us. It didn’t really have to be Christmassy, it just needed to somewhat resemble a card.

The idea is to overthrow the ephemeral notion of a Seasons Greetings card on its head and make something with your own hands that a fellow crafter will appreciate and want to keep.

I was partnered with Hélène, felter extraordinaire, so I was naturally stressed out. I knew my card wouldn’t begin to compare with anything she created, but I put those pesky defeating voices aside and got to work.

It took me a few days to come up with a jolly (ha, again!, I crack myself up) theme for the time of year, and decided to join two strengths of mine: pattern search and knitting. Off to Ravelry I went browsing, and settled on Stay Cool  by Drops Yarn.

Ravelry first page results for patterns with the term "snowflake"
First page results on Ravelry for the term “Snowflake.” Pretty, but not very card-like…

Stay Cool is meant to be a pot holder but I adapted it to be slightly longer on two sides and kept the back plain so I could attach it to cardboard. In hindsight, I could have knitted both sides in pattern, but at this point I was still a little fuzzy on my end goal. (Sorry, Hélène!)

I used my own hand spun yarn because I wanted the “card” to be as handmade and personal as I could possibly make it. If you want to get geeky with me with specs, I used white Shetland spun woollen from pencil roving for one yarn, and an Alpaca/Polwarth blend spun worsted for the brown.

A printed version of the pattern on top and the finished knitted snowflake "card" on the bottom

Not unsurprisingly, the back came out “longer” than the front, despite having the same number of stitches. I should’ve predicted this because fair isle knitting constricts patterns a bit, but alas, I didn’t remember.

Now came the daunting part for me: wet felting. I wanted the end result to be a fuzzy and smaller version of the knit, so off I went to the kitchen sink armed with bubble wrap, soap and very hot water.

If you think this felted right away, you’d be wrong. Nothing happened for the longest time! In fact, I nearly despaired because my idea was to fuse the back to the front, and that never happened. Apparently, knitted jumpers accidentally machine washed only become tiny versions of themselves if you never intended for them to shrink – Sod’s law!

After what seemed like four years of wet felting, here’s what my snowflake looked like:

Knitted snowflake after wet felting, on cardstock background with "Merry Xmas" written on top with iridescent ink

Hopefully it still looks like a snowflake to the untrained eye. I punched holes onto the thickest paper I could find and attached the wool to it with string, because I want Hélène to be able to take it out and use it as a coaster (or something else functional of her choice). This way she can always have a laugh every time she reaches for a hot drink and sees my meagre wet felting technique.

Detail of "Merry Xmas" wording on card showcasing the ink's shimmer qualities

The ink I chose has gold shimmer in it, which I found quite Christmassy. I hope Hélène can forgive the “Xmas” instead of the word proper – I ran out of space.

(Aaand, a little confession: I cheated and sent my card swap partner something extra… ‘Tis the season, after all!)

A very cute needle felted Christmas tree with baubles and a star on top, made by Eleanor Shadow

That’s it from me. I have a newfound respect for anyone who takes the never-ending task of wet felting. What advice would you give me for future soapy endeavours?

Six hand spun mini skeins in different shades of pink and in different fibre combinations
I’ve been spinning a little in the past month

I’ve been spinning a little in the past month

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You know how when you get excited about one hobby, the other ones get left behind? Well, for some reason I’ve been bitten by the spinning bug in the last month, and I’ve a few skeins to show for.

Let’s start with the green-blues.

Four skeins of hand spun yarns by Eleanor Shadow

The big green skein was spun using some Leicester Longwool locks I dyed for this purpose, since I wanted to make a super Halloween-y textured art yarn; I plied it with some commercial yarn (also dyed by me) that I had to over twist in my wheel so it would un-twist as I paired it with the textured ply.

The smallest skein is baby llama, my very first time spinning such a fibre. I’m a fan! I’d love to spin more of this in the future. It’s very soft and warm.

To the right there’s a fun Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) and bio-nylon yarn that I tested for my own shop (got to know what I’m selling, right?) and I can say I love this fibre combination. The BFL is very soft and lofty, and the bio-nylon increases the strength of the wool without harming the environment since it’s as fully compostable as the natural animal fibre. I’d have no problems knitting some socks using this yarn.

At the bottom, a rather fun jewel tones Shetland and Tussah silk combo (70/30) that just glided off my hands effortlessly.

But wait, there’s more!

I was perusing World of Wool’s website a while back and came across their taster package in shades of pink, and was tempted. Each resulting mini skein is 25g and very squishy.

Six hand spun mini skeins in different shades of pink and in different fibre combinations

From left to right: merino and nylon sparkle; merino and silk; merino; wool and viscose; merino, alpaca and mohair; merino and bamboo.

My favourite to spin was the (mysterious) wool and viscose. Those tweedy bits kept me very engaged and wanting to keep treadling! The merino/alpaca/mohair blend to its right was also rather lovely. Although these all came from the same pack, I don’t feel the shades complement each other too well, so I might not try to add them to the same project in the future.

You’d think I’d be done by now, but… there’s more.

Three hand spun yarns by Eleanor Shadow

If my goth self in my 20s would’ve guessed I’d be spinning this much pink, I’d be appalled! But yes, those colours were all my choice. The pink of the left was a particularly bouncy merino and soy fibre combo, the middle one is a merino/alpaca/camel/silk blend (40/20/20/20) and the right skein is anyone’s guess (it’s a mix and match of several different wool nests a friend gave me to spin that I decided to merge together. I wish I had a jumper quantity of this!)

Lastly…

A merino hand spun skein in jewel tones by Eleanor Shadow

I dug into my own shop’s stash for this one. The colours were super well defined in the fibre braid, but I decided to spin them in a way that would blend everything and I don’t regret it one bit. This would knit up rather nicely, I’d say. If my knitting mojo comes back anytime soon I might give it a try…

There’s actually one more skein, but it’s a white one and it didn’t photograph well…

So, do you think my wheel was busy, or do any of you spin more in any given month? Let me know below.

Summer knitting (but Summer isn’t cooperating)

Summer knitting (but Summer isn’t cooperating)

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They tell me it’s Summer already. To be honest, I haven’t noticed… I know most of you reading after this post is published might be complaining about how hot it is, but I can inform you I’m currently writing this with a jacket on.

Ah, Scottish Summer…

I had lots of lovely knitting projects in mind for the warmer months of the year, two of which involved making some season-appropriate tops to wear when the sun was out. This would be my first time knitting something Summer-specific and I was very excited about the prospect.

Have I mentioned “Ah, Scottish Summer” yet?

Anyway, since there’s no view to wear these lovely makes anytime soon, I thought I’d share them anyway so you can at least boost my ego and tell me they’re lovely. Ready?

Ripple Halter by Jessie Maed Designs in neon yellow, on a hanger against a white door
Ripple Halter by Jessie Maed Designs

In another blog post where I mentioned being brave enough to unravel my knitting without a lifeline, this halter top appeared briefly. I finally finished it! Just in time to enjoy it on a hanger instead of on my person… (this is knit in merino wool but it’s still too cool for the current weather, at least for me!)

My other fun knit is not quite finished yet… but my brain being what it is and hating an unfinished project, I can’t move on to another until this one is done – even if I know I won’t wear it anytime soon.

Gelato Tank Top on a hanger against a white door
Gelato Tank Top by Gabrielle Vézina

Note the knitting needles on the bottom! The white strip is some leftover yarn I used as a lifeline in case I wanted to frog the whole thing back (which I will, because I want a couple more rounds of stocking stitch before the edging).

Closeup of Gelato Tank Top lace front panel

I mainly knit this tank top for the front lace panel, which I thought looked fun. The yarn I knit it with is a linen blend, very soft and perfect for warmer weather.

Some of you might be reading this and saying, “But Leonor, you can wear these with a jacket, what’s the problem?” And you’d be right, that’s definitely an option. However, considering how windy it’s been in Edinburgh, I’ll want to button up the jacket, which will hide the layer underneath.

I guess I’m just grumpy this Summer has been nothing like I planned and want some commiserating 🙂

What about you, any fun plans for the season? Share them with the in the comments section so I can live vicariously! And, thanks for reading.

Marshmallow the cat looks at my hand as my knitting project is frogged
Getting brave with knitting (and a little bit of spinning)

Getting brave with knitting (and a little bit of spinning)

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The knitting

I’m very glad to have finally regained my knitting mojo after such a long hiatus. Once the days started lengthening and getting slightly warmer, my brain seems to have understood it was time for my hands to get busy making again.

However, my attention span might have been left behind somewhere, for I ended up making a few mistakes that I missed until much later! I’m glad I did catch them though.

I was knitting a Poet jumper and the pattern has sections with seed stitch. Seed stitch is created by overlapping a purl stitch over a knit stitch in alternating rows/rounds, so that you get a sort of dotted pattern resembling… seeds (the name says it all, really).
Without noticing at the time, I repeated two exact rows and ended up with something… wrong that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Once I spotted the issue however, there was no un-seeing it.

A section of my Poet jumper, showing a knitting mistake somewhere

Can you spot the mistake? I can see it from a distance… It’s a little below the middle.

A finger points at a knitting mistake on a Poet jumper
Putting my finger on it. See the two yarn-overs on top of each other on the right? One of them is the extra row I knit by mistake.

This put me in a conundrum: do I ignore the mistake and keep going, or do I frog the thing and correct it? I put it to social media, and the vast majority told me to leave it and continue. Naturally, this made me decide to frog it.

For the non-knitters: the term “frogging” is used because when you remove the needles from your work and pull the yarn back into the ball, you “rip it, rip it,” which sounds like “ribbit,” the sound frogs make.
(Don’t worry, I too was baffled when learning this.)

Completely removing the knitting needles from a project and effectively ridding the thing of its unravelling potential is daunting to me. When one does this, one also loses all useful markers set by the pattern creator, and I always fear I’ll forever miss my place and be unable to proceed… I took a deep breath, chose to trust myself and off the needles came. I stopped a couple of rounds before the offending mistake and opted to “tink” (that’s “knit” backwards – I know, I know…) until I’d corrected it. Phew.

Here’s the jumper, all finished, after I was set back two whole days of knitting.

A knitted Poet jumper is blocking on wires and a blocking mat on the floor
Here is my Poet, blocking

You’d think my knitting snafus were over, but it seems I wasn’t done frogging… I started on my Ripple Halter and, a couple of inches before being finished, noticed I was one stitch off. Normally not a big problem, but this is a 2×2 ribbing which only remains correct if the right number of stitches are maintained, so I definitely had a problem.

I’d done it once, I’d do it again! Frog, frog.

Marshmallow the cat looks at my hand as my knitting project is frogged
Marshmallow offers her support…

This was also a scary one, because I had 8 markers I needed to put back in the correct place to be able to follow the pattern. I managed… somehow. Three more days of knitting, gone. It’s all part of the handmade process though, right?

The spinning

My spinning mojo has also returned. I wanted some textured art yarn and set about preparing the fibres to make it happen.

Once my Leicester Longwool locks were dry, it was time to spin.

Now I need to decide how to ply this. I think I might dye some wool top neon green, spin it  thin and use it to create a textured, thick and thin art yarn. What do you think? Also: am I mad for frogging days’ worth of knitting for what a lot of people deem “small mistakes”?

—

Ever wondered what the difference is between wool top and wool roving? I wrote a blog post on it on my own website and would love it if you’d read it. Thanks so much!

Collage in oranges, yellows and reds
Bad “art”

Bad “art”

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If you’re anything like me, you’ll find it very hard to stick to one hobby alone. After all, there are too many temptations out there, and each creative endeavour fuels the brain differently – it’s fun to discover new materials to play and interact with, and see what comes out of the experimentations.

I rediscovered the love of journaling last October, and have since then filled two notebooks of ramblings, ideas, memories and opinions. As I progressed in my writing however, I noticed I was also very attracted by the notion of doing something visually creative with paper and stationery.

Now, I must add a disclaimer here: I don’t think the pages I filled are special. They’re not particularly beautiful or unusual, and that’s definitely not a negative thing – I started doing collages simply for the joy of playing with images and colours, and these were the space for me to have some non-commercial, creative fun. It was my way of relaxing and letting go of expectations, of “what will others think of this,” of any idea that one’s creative endeavours must always be amazing. I just wanted to get messy with glue and glitter.

A closed notebook on a white wooden surface

This is the cover of my A5 size notebook. It’s decorated with some leftover fabric (featuring cats, obviously) and the artwork from a tin of… Sardines? Cod? I might add more stuff to it as I go along, since I don’t consider any of the pages here “finished.”

Side view of my notebook, with all the wavy and textured pages

This notebook came with different types of paper, so I play with it depending on the “canvas” I want. As you can see, the middle pages have been used the most, and apparently I’ve not much love for plain white paper.

Open notebook, showing two pages of a collage

I tend to go by colour and texture, more than whether the things make sense together. My brain seems to enjoy adding stuff to paper until it looks filled enough and has things to make the eye wander.

Another two pages of my collage notebook, on a white wooden surface

Fabric scraps and teabags are game. See the eye on the lower left corner? I stole that from my husband’s studio, he’d removed it from one of his paintings – does this count as artistic appropriation?

Two unrelated pages of my collage notebook open

Collages made using medical information leaflets and other bits and bobs

If you can’t read the weird Balzac quote above, it is as follows: “No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman.” What a weird fellow he was (and I hope no one followed his advice!)

Collage using glitter, ink and paper

Collage in oranges, yellows and reds

I say this again proudly: none of these collages are groundbreaking or particularly good. What they are, is FUN. I loved making them with no end game in mind, no agenda and, until I decided to share them here, I was perfectly convinced none would ever see the light of day. It’s very liberating to create with full freedom from our inner critic and, if you’ve never tried, I urge you to give it a go. It might even fuel your creativity for the more “serious” stuff you make.

How many hobbies do you have? Are they all fibre- or textile-related? Let me know what’s tickling your crafty mojo lately in the comments section.

 

 

Hand sewing some rabbits

Hand sewing some rabbits

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Recently, the Chinese celebrated the arrival of the Year of the Rabbit. How very fortunate of me, then, to have a couple of rabbits to hand stitch!

I had initially bough this Briar Bunnies kit for my mum, to keep her entertained during her Christmas stay with us… in 2021. My mother started making them, but lost steam somewhere along us all catching Covid and being flabbergasted by how messy our place was (if only she knew we had tidied up before she arrived!) After she left, the poor duo was stashed somewhere in my studio and completely forgotten, until recently.

Unfinished hand sewn Briar Bunnies, a kit by Cool Crafting

This is how my mother left her bunnies. The blue pen markings were done by me with a heat-erasable Frixion pen. The ink would guide the stitches and would disappear once I ironed the fabric after sewing.

You’ll notice there are two pairs of ears and arms. I had suggested mum make two bunnies at a time to avoid what in the knitting world is called “second sock syndrome” – when you’ve knitted one sock and don’t feel at all motivated to start all over again and repeating the same steps to make another… Once I took over the project, I followed my own advise.

The pattern expects you to machine sew the bunnies, but in my mind that would completely defeat my notion of enjoying the making process to the full. Machine sewing these bunnies would mean I’d be done in a couple of hours, not nearly enough time to be mindful of even having held them! Hand stitching was much better for that.

Two hand stitched bunnies, with striped leggings

My hand stitching skills are mediocre at best, but slowly I saw the rabbits shaping up. One of them has wonky ears and her leggings don’t quite match in the front, and I love that about her. It adds personality!

Two finished hand sewn linen rabbits with coordinating red and floral garments

Here they are all finished. Those dresses took me ages to make! I can’t tell you how long exactly, but a good amount of an audiobook kept me company whilst I slowly stabbed the fabric and, once or twice, my fingers. The bunny on the left was supposed to have a bow made with the same burgundy fabric as her dress, but after almost losing my mind turning the other bow inside out, I decided to go for a red ribbon instead. It’s not cutting corners, it’s being creative…

Have you hand sewn anything lately? Do you love or hate the notion of slow stitching? Let me know your thoughts.

 

November challenge: knitting for charity

November challenge: knitting for charity

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As I was scrolling through Instagram one day, I saw this advert by Dementia UK asking people to join their November challenge: to knit every day for that month and raise money for their charity.

I’d never done this sort of thing before, and felt compelled to join and see how I’d do. It’s a worthwhile cause, and charities are always in need of money.
It has to be said that, in the past, I’d probably shy away from such a challenge because I’d fear “not reaching my goal,” which Present Me finds silly – I’m not doing this for brownie points, it’s not a measure of my self-worth and, more importantly, if I only raise £10, it’s ten pounds more that Dementia UK will have to help those in need.
Present Me is wiser than Past Me, don’t you think?

A dark grey hand knit jumper on a mannequin

Here is my first make, which I finished in, I think, 5 days. It’s knit with super bulky wool, so it goes along super quickly.
This is a free pattern by Drops Yarn – very fitting, because the yarn is also by Drops – and it has to be said, the instructions could be better. There were a couple of techniques I had to look up in video format because the written instructions just didn’t make any sense (to me, anyway). I also made a few changes here and there, one of them being some waist shaping. I also changed the sleeves a little to adapt them to my small frame.

A closeup of my hand knitted grey jumper, where I show the shoulder detail.

It’s a very warm jumper and I’ve worn it several times to help with having lowered my thermostat at home.
On a side note, I might add a few more rows to the sleeves just to make them extra, extra cosy.

A hand knit grey beanie hat on top of a mannequin.

I had a lot of wool left after finishing the jumper, so I decided to knit a beanie hat. This was knit in an evening and I can attest it’s kept my noggin’ warm when venturing outdoors.

Finally, a bit of a cheat…

Remember my Dead of Night jumper, that I showed you in my previous post? (Apologies for the lack of link to said post, I can’t find it at the moment of writing!)

Dead of Night jumper, pattern by Dear Ingenue, on a mannequin

I had “finished” it a few weeks ago, but hadn’t woven in the ends. I took the opportunity to do so and therefore count it as another November make – hey, it’s not done until all the tiny details are finished, correct?
It did turn out to be too large for me as had previously mentioned, but in a lovely twist of fate, my mother loved the pattern and wants it. That’s one Christmas present sorted!
It’s not blocked yet, as I want Mum to try it on and see if I need to coax its shape in any particular way. This is why you can still see yarn sticking out on the sleeve, I only cut the woven-in ends after I’ve blocked the garment.

So, that’s my November knits. The more observant of you will notice I probably didn’t knit every day for 30 days. Sadly, you’re right! Life got in the way and I was unable to keep up, but I did share what I was doing on my social media and managed to raise around £70 total for Dementia UK!

Not bad for a first, and not very persistent, try.

Have you ever knit for charity? Share your experience with me. If you have any fundraising advise, I’d love to read about it.

Finally, happy holidays, everyone! I hope you have a nice season whether you celebrate or not. See you next year.