Oxfam challenge

Oxfam is calling on all knitters in the South West to purl together and support a new campaign to help reduce the numbers of women who die needlessly every year in pregnancy and childbirth. Millions of mums in poor countries get low-quality health care or are forced to go though pregnancy and childbirth without it altogether, meaning that, every minute, a mother dies because she doesn’t have access to the medical care she needs.

The campaign is being launched in partnership with the parenting website http://www.mumsnet.com/ and knitters across the UK will be asked to make 9-inch squares for a giant baby blanket, with each knitted square representing a mother who did not survive pregnancy or childbirth to be able to care for her baby. Some Stitch n bitch groups are also involved already (http://stitchandbitchlondon.wordpress.com/ ).

Our aim is to get 250,000 squares by September, the number of mothers who could have been saved in that time if decent healthcare had been available. The giant blanket will be handed over to the UK Government just before world leaders meet in New York to discuss progress on the Millennium Development Goals, aimed at halving world poverty by 2015. It will represent a demand to global leaders to act now to ensure that everyone in the world has access to free basic healthcare. After the giant blanket has been handed in, it will be dismantled and sold in Oxfam shops and at festivals, with the money raised going towards Oxfam's work to fight poverty.

If this is something you would be keen to get involved in it would be fantastic to have your support.

Meet Ronnie

This is Ronnie, he will be a present for K when we meet her. The pattern is one Linda kindly gave me, a Mary Ann Gebhardt classic teddy bear pattern from interweave knits.com.

The main colour is another beautiful eco wool and the coloured parts are odd bits and bobs from my stash.

He's got some curvature of the spine issues but his jaunty little twist gives him character!

Some people run marathons...

...other people knit snood/ cowl type things with 400 stitches in each row! I have finally completed this for Bella, a friend at work. It has been a bit of a labour of love. It is knit in 100% angora (which I bought from Coldharbour Mill) and is beautifully soft. I can't really call it my own 'pattern' - I just cast on 400 stitches onto a long circular needle, joined into a round and worked 1x1 rib until it measured 13 inches, ending up with a giant loop. The idea is that she can loop it once around her neck and once round her head, or twice round her neck. Here's a photo of her modelling it!

Big Bear and Little Bear

Big bear is the big bear and little bear is the little bear. Big bear and little bear lived in a house with a mouse and her mummy. The mouse's mummy often tried to knit things and sometimes she was less successful than others. This particular time she had attempted to knit a sock on the train and although she thought she was doing very well, it was in reality a different story all together. When she got home she was very excited to have finished one of the socks and so decided to celebrate and drink some red wine, and commence knitting the other sock. Let this be a lesson to all bears (mice and people)...as you can well imagine, the 'under-the-influence-sock' did not quite turn out the way it was supposed to, and much to big bear's disatisfaction, and little bear's amusement, she bequeathed the odd socks to the mouse, who loved them very much and put them straight on big bear's cold feet to warm her up - right after she had finished her Oliver Newton-John work-out. THE END.

The first ever cardigan

OK - so I can't resist telling you about the first ever cardigan i knitted. I decided to knit it when I was pregnant, having previously only ever knitted scarves or blankets (that began their life as a scarf and ended up as a blanket, but that is a whole other story and if I ever get the photo of it I will definitely post it). Anyway - it was supposed to be a white cardigan, for a newborn baby...my daughter is now over 2 and can just about wear it! I knew very little about babies when I knitted it (as you can tell), so just to illustrate what size I thought the baby might be (according to my knitting at least) when it came out, I have put it next to one of her dolls....

At least it has lasted 2 years already and I bet we can get another year's wear out of it! I made up the stripes myself from lots of different bits of wool I pinched off my mother, and I knitted it with needles that were too big f0r the wool...hence its quite holey! But, other than that - its not too bad for a first attempt - methinks! Enjoy!

The one that took tooooo long!

Goodmorning fellow knit-knits! I have finally managed to get some photos sent to me of the very lovely jumper (if I say so myself) that I knitted for little L's 3rd birthday. Here he is proudly modelling it! It was made in Chameleon (Wendy) which is the loveliest wool (and 47% wool, 50% acrylic and 3% polyester), chunky with a very fine black thread wound around it - knitted on 6.5m needles (uk). Its a sort of dark orange, yellow, pink and brown and knits in stripes beautifully. The pattern came from one of Linda's magazines - I can't remember which one, but perhaps Linda can add that at the bottom of this blog?:o) Anyway - it was easy peasy!

It's actually the first jumper I have ever made (have previously only made 2 cardigans, one of which was a cadigan coat thing) so have never previously had to tackle the V neck! But, all said and done, it turned out pretty good and I don't even think there were any mistakes in it! It did take an awful long time as for some reason I had knitter's cramp...and it does unfortunately seem to be lingering...it may have something to do with getting an allotment and not having space for 2 hobbies in my head! Have a wonderful weekend whatever you do! I shall be praying for sunshine! :o)

Lovely little cardi

I just wanted to add to few words about the lovely little cardi that Linda has photographed so beautifully (scroll down a bit!). It was made for my boss's daughter, who is now well on the way to being grown up, when she was small. Linda and I though it would be nice to post some photos because it uses such a pretty combination of colours and is so sweet - especially the hand made label. I think Linda may be working on a pattern to go with it or at least some instructions on how to do the exciting bobbly bits.

losing the will to knit

I thought I would post a picture of my mid-way through project as I can't get the motivation to finish it. Little needles and lots of stitches really aren't my thing but it will be my first ever adult sized cardigan when it's done.

I'm using the beautiful eco wool I got for my birthday along with a bit of green from the mill place in Tiverton (name is escaping me) and following a pattern from the Eco wool dk book. It'll be brilliant when it's finished....

Anyway, posting a half finished thing will now shame me into completing it (that's the plan anyway) xxx

Isn't this lovely!

Some knitting patterns may not be worth the effort...

Not really sure what to say about this. It's pink and it's a sheep (I know it looks like a hedgehog, think that might have something to do with her very pointy face). To help to make her more realistic I have added some grass (I think that made it worse).

It's good to do everything once in life. Now I wont have to make a pink sheep ever again.