March Haul

I have purchased some sock yarn this month. I needed yarn for some of the patterns I am writing up and I had always planned that I would buy that now. What I didn’t plan was buying some yarn ‘just because’. Actually, it’s not entirely for selfish reasons. As all of you will know I am a huge fan of my talented friend Lisa of For the Love of Yarn. What you may not know is that I am also a HUGE fan of her three very talented children. Lisa’s children have always been creative and inquisitive about what she does and they are crafty themselves. One day they asked Lisa if they could try dying yarn and they love it. It’s a creative outlet where they get to pick colours, names and be part of the process. They also choose the charity the money goes to for any of the yarns that sell. Lisa makes no money from these and her children have always been keen to help out others. This goes back from before even her eldest was unwell. If you follow Lisa you will see that she is coming up with new colour ways herself and Callum (her eldest) has picked an anti-bullying charity Respect Me and a mental health charity SAMH to be the recipients of her upcoming colourways. For someone who has had so much going on in her life. So much has been taken from her I can only admire her strength and her passion on continuing to give to others.

Now to the yarn. The first is a sock yarn and the colourway is called Comic Con designed and named by Callum. I don’t know how he did it but he picked the perfect colours and name for me (being a self proclaimed geek). I had planned to knit up socks for myself but actually I think I might use it to knit socks for one of my nurse friends. The second is a slubby sock yarn. It was dyed teal by the youngest of the cherubs, Isabella. This is my favourite colour and so I couldn’t resist it. I have never tried knitting socks with this yarn before and I’m excited to try. I have plans for a lace design and will use a little of it to knit up a swatch. You can find more of these beautiful yarns under the cherubs collection in Lisa’s shop. Please remember that these children do this for fun and to raise money for charities that they have chosen. So even if you are unable to buy any of these yarns please at least remember this years motto ‘Be Kind’.

I have a collection of patterns that I hope to bring out at the end of this month although it may be April. It’s called my Birthday Diamonds collection. The first sock pattern I designed was for myself as a challenge and to cheer myself up. I always meant to publish it but things got in the way. I then did a pattern for my sister and I planned on creating one for my dad. My dad’s is still in my head and partially on paper although never been on the pins. He is quite fussy with the socks I knit him. He prefers dark colours and plain knitting. I did the plain black socks once and I swore never again. This time though I will give him the dark socks but there will be a pattern. Has to be otherwise there goes my collection. I chose a DK yarn for him and a charcoal colour which is as close to knitting with black as I like to get. The yarn is Roslyn by Cascade yarns which has a beautiful tweed effect. I think he will like it and I can’t wait to knit with it myself. I ordered two 100g balls of this because he has large feet but it also means I will have enough to knit up a swatch. Who knew I would become a swatcher.

For my socks and my sister’s I went with Heritage also by Cascade yarns. I picked out a cream for myself and a rose for my sister since she loves pink. I’m looking forward to knitting these up and finally sharing the patterns with you. My mum is missing from this collection. She passed away before I started trying out my own designs. While I won’t be designing a Birthday Diamonds pattern for her I do have something else planned to honour her. This possibly won’t happen until next year but I have a sock design planned out for her and once I publish it all money made from the sales of it will go directly to Cancer Research UK. This is a very important charity to me as they tried to give my mum a little more time through their trials. Sadly she was never fit enough to start but they wanted to help and their work is important. I’ve seen that since becoming an oncology nurse myself (I don’t work for Cancer Research so my choice is purely in honour of my mum). Any socks that I design in the future which are inspired by mum will go to this charity. As I said this won’t happen for quite a while but I wanted to highlight why my mum wouldn’t be included in the collection.