The Cute Stuff book isn’t new, nor is the cute cat, but Sew Pretty Homestyle and Sewing in No Time are. I’ve also acquired Layer Cake, Jelly Roll, and Charm Quilts and Heather Ross’ book Weekend Sewing.

From left to right, from the sale at Purlescence, I have silkworm-friendly Nature’s Harvest ‘Wild Silk’, one skein of Alchemy ‘Haiku’, my first ever skein of 100% cashmere from Artyarns, and two skeins of Claudia Handpainted ‘Felt Me’. The Noro ‘Kochoran’ is one of two I bought on sale from Twist Fibre Craft Studio in Newburgh. From this lovely shop I also purchased…

…some gorgeous variegated merino-silk fibre, some felt, and some Lopi Roving along with some other assorted bits and bobs (they had squeakers! I’ll be able to do lots of mischief with those! ). I have no idea what I’ll do with these materials, but it’s fun to ponder and they are beautiful to look at..

I bought my first Moda pre-cuts–I suppose it was only a matter of time. I intend to use the Wonderland to sew Nyssa the Moda Bakeshop Patchwork Skirt. I hope I have leftovers because I adore that line. I might need to get a jelly roll or layer cake.. Also in the pile is a fat quarter set of orangey florals from John Louden, a Moda ‘Kansas Winter’ charm pack and a ‘Peace on Earth’ Layer Cake.

It’s amazing how pleasing owning bits of spun or woven fibre can be

A flowery skirt for the girl..

A giant pear doorstop and a titchy pear pincushion..

A Star Wars pillow for the boy..

And a birdie bag for the girl..

My weirdo continental knitting style

I have a couple hand-related issues that make knitting in the ‘throwing’ style a bit awkward. First of all, my wrists are prone to fatigue (wimps). Second, my left thumb was broken when I was little and healed sort of backwards and having to support everything with that hand is uncomfortable. As is long-tail cast-on, which I keep intending to teach myself to do backwards..but anyway. I tried to learn both traditional continental and combined, both of which I found difficult. With continental, everything is peachy if I’m doing long rows of knits or purls. In fact that’s still my preferred method. The trouble comes when I need to do something like seed or ribbing. I could never get the hang of it. The famous ‘combined’ style just required too much brain power, with the having to untwist stitches and whatnot, tbh. So here is what I worked out:

For purling, the yarn comes from over the back, and is hooked around my index finger.

For knitting, the yarn is kicked to the back with my middle finger. Yarn can be hooked around extra fingers for tension as needed.

This seems to work pretty well, though for huge yarn like Big Wool or Ribbon Twist, I’d probably just go back to throwing. I’d also probably be using sticks in those instances. My weirdo method works best for me when using circular needles because my hands can curve to a better angle, I think. Incidentally, those lace addis with the non-slippy coating are brilliant.