First sock of the year

 Hi there!  I hope everyone has had a good week, it's been super hot and muggy here, not like our normal dry heat in summer, the humidity really takes it out of you!  

I have mostly been working on small projects that are nice and portable, like the super cute Little Boxes Socks by Summer Lee Designs.  Her sock patterns are available on Ravelry and are great for colour play with colour work knitting and for using up small amounts of yarn like  Advent sets and mini skeins.  She has so many lovely designs, I want to make them all!

This is the first one completed, I have started the second one and hopefully I'll stay interested long enough to actually finish this pair! :)  I really like the after-thought heel that Summer does in this pattern (and lots of her other ones too)  it is so easy!  I do get tiny holes at the corner of the heel, but I will darn them closed when I weave in the yarn tails. 

I can't remember if I mentioned it in my last post, but I am joining in on a Year of Socks for 2022 too, so aiming for one pair a month.  These are the January ones, I have a feeling they might drag into February before they are finished, so I'm already a bit behind.  lol, I tend to plan too big and run out of steam, but this is a bit early in the year to give up completely!   I have some other gorgeous colour combinations picked out, so that should keep me motivated. :)  On the positive side, I have already started my second Hexie for the Persian Dreams Blanket, so I'm ahead of schedule with that one! 

I have some crochet on the go too, just some spotty facewashers, I'll show you those at a later date. 

(I'm finding it a challenge to get back in the swing of taking photos for posts during the day and loading them onto the computer, I think Instagram has made me slack, the quickness of posting on there is quite an addictive thing.  I'll need to find some discipline to get back in the habit of planning posts and getting the right photos for them!)

Ok, better go now and get dinner ready, it's my son Jesse's birthday today.  I'm feeling the time flying by, I feel too young to have a 26 year old son, but it has happened!   So it's a birthday celebration tonight, maybe a nice cold glass of champagne is called for! 

Talk soon! xxxxxxxxxxx

Year of Colour 2022

 Well it has been along time between posts hasn't it!  Hello out there!

Last year seemed to go by in a blur of lockdowns and Covid restrictions, I just didn't seem to find my blogging mojo at all.  I'm hoping that 2022 will be different, and while we are all still living in a Covid world, maybe things will seem a little easier to manage.  Although we are certainly doing our best to stay Covid safe, I really hope we can keep the shop open through the winter this year. 

So what has been happening since my last post? 

Little Woollie Makes Yarn Store is still here, we were able to keep trading online through the lockdowns even though the shop was closed to visitors, it kept us going and I can't thank all our wonderful customers enough for supporting our shop through the pandemic, I am so very grateful! xxxxxxx

I am an eternal optimist, and have kept on ordering more stock and sourcing lots of beautiful yarns to share with you all.  It's such a problem when there are so many gorgeous yarns to tempt me, I really don't know when to stop!! 

Mel is back working with me at the shop, and we have added another member to our little team, the lovely Louisa, who has mad knitting skills and is a gorgeous person as well!   I feel so lucky to have such awesome people working with me at Little Woollie Makes.  (it's hard to believe the shop only exists because I started this blog, it's been such a wonderful journey over the last 10 years or so!) 

Which brings me to this year!  We have been seeing so many gorgeous colourwork projects popping up on Ravelry and IG that we thought we might dedicate 2022 to being a Year of Colour, where we can explore some of the wonderful colourwork techniques that you can use to play with colour in knitting and crochet.  Whether it is stranded colourwork, or more traditional fairisle patterns, double knitting, or intarsia work or tapestry crochet, there are lots of ways to bring more colour play into your yarny crafts. 

I thought I might share things that inspire me, new patterns, or older patterns I've found that I'd like to make.  If you would like to make along with us too, that would be lovely, we will be sharing our progress on Instagram and also on my Podcast ( it will make me actually record an episode!) in the newsletter, and I thought we might have a monthly Zoom get together for people who live far away, to see what other people have been making, so you can share your progress with us all that way too.  You can pick to make whatever you like and we can all encourage each other through the year.

We were planning on having a monthly 'Year Of Colour' get together at the shop for any local peeps who are close enough to visit, but with the way the Covid numbers are going at the moment, we might have to wait a while to do that.  Nevermind, I'm sure we can find ways to connect and inspire each other from afar.

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This is my first colourwork project for the year.

 It's the start of the amazing  Persian Dreams blanket by Jenise Hope  , the pattern can be found on Ravelry. 

It is a large blanket made up of stranded colour work hexagons.  I have just finished my first hexie, so it is going to be a slow burn project for me, I'll aim for one hexie a month I think.    It is knit from the centre out. The photos show my progress from starting it on Double Pointed needles, then putting it onto a small circular and then upgrading to bigger cable lengths as the stitch count grew. It finished up on a 120cm cord!   So quite a few stitches in each round at the end.

The pattern is actually made for 4ply yarn, but I have decided to do mine in 8ply with a 3.75mm needle. I am also not going to do all the different colour changes as shown in the pattern, instead I am choosing a hand dyed variegated colour as my contrast and a solid colour for my background.   I am going to do each hexie a different combo of colours, so mine will have more of a patchwork feel to it I think. 

This one used Great Southern Yarn 8ply in colour Brockoff's Hut for the background, and a Hedgehog Fibres DK potluck colour for the contrast. 

 Mel has made an amazing cushion from 2 hexies done in 12ply, it is huge and squishy, I'll pop a pick up in other post. 

I think that's all I have for today, I'll let you know when the vlog/podcast is ready if you're interested. 

Stay healthy and happy in these strange times we find ourselves living through!

Julie xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx