Knitted Daffodils for Irish Cancer Society

Each year in Ireland, daffodils are sold in every street corner to help raise money for Irish Cancer Society.

This year I found this blog post on Michelle Made This where you can find instructions on how to knit daffodils and the details on how to forward them to Irish Cancer Society so that they can be sold to help them raise money for their organisation.

So far I have knitted 11 daffodils, and I plan to make some more in the next two weeks which I will bring to the coffee morning in Roscommon on March 14th, unless I can find somewhere closer. I haven't contacted them yet (I have a bit of a phone phobia, and try avoiding making phone calls whenever possible, unless it's for a job that pays me to use the phone or a medical emergency). For more more information on any local events you can contact Irish Cancer Society on 1850 60 60 60.

Here's what I made so far:

Knitted Daffodils for Irish Cancer Society

I used the knitted pattern which can be downloaded for free here with a few changes in order to avoid bits of fiddly sewing:

• To make the trumpet, instead of casting off after the last row of petals where you get 7 stitches, I knit one row with one increase in each stitch: kfb (knit front and back of each stitch), which gives me 14 stitches. I can then knit the 4 rows of the trumpet and cast off before closing the daffodil, which does involve minimal sewing.
• In order to make the stem, I turn the closed daffodil on its back and pick up 5 stitches, trying to get them from around the middle, and evenly spaced to try and include one from each petal, then I use the i-cord method to knit the stem using green yarn - you can do this using 2 double pointed needles or 1 circular needle: once you have knit the first row, slide the stitches to the other side of the needle and knit the new row; you will need to knit the first stitch of each rows quite tight to avoid a gap and after a few rows you will start seeing a small tube shape. When you get to the length you want (I knit until I have an 8cm long stem), no need to cast off, just cut the yarn leaving a 8 cm tail, insert the yarn tail in a tapestry needle and thread through all 5 stitches starting from the stitch furthest to your yarn and make a knot to secure. Hide the tail inside the stem (I try bringing it up all the way to the top of the stem to make the stem a bit stronger).
• Add a safety pin. I'm afraid my safety pin doesn't look as neat as I would like it too, but this will not show once the daffodil is worn:

Back of knitted daffodil

The daffodils may look a bit complicated for beginners but they are actually very easy and I find them almost addictive to knit.

I'll get back to knitting some more next week, as I am busy crocheting a few bits which I can't share yet for my daughter's birthday party (which is coming closer than I thought since I realised there were only 28 days in February!) and I also need to sew the blue cabled cardigan I finished last week and gave myself today's deadline to do (5 pieces of knitted cardigan pieces aren't doing anyone any good when they're left in a shopping bag!).

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Blue Knitted Cabled Cardigan Nearly Finished

Back in January, I started knitting the "Chocolate Passion Cabled Jacket" from a free knitting pattern I found on Ravelry. Well, I can't really call mine "Chocolate", as it's blue.

I'm very happy to say I got all the pieces finished since yesterday. I did encounter a few problems along the way, why is bound to happen when you read the instructions too quickly and if you haven't knitted a full garment like this for a while.

The back piece had to be ripped partly and re-knitted twice but overall, I am glad I spent no more than 6 weeks doing all of the pieces. It would have taken less time if I hadn't been doing other projects between each piece, but knitting and crocheting small things in between helped me not getting bored with it.

Here's a picture of all 5 pieces on my kitchen table:

Knitted blue cardigan before assembling

Yes I know, it doesn't look like a cardigan yet, and the most difficult part is yet to be done: the dreaded sewing all the pieces together without making it bunch or having the tell-tale sewing lines showing on the outside!

I am hoping to get it all together before next week, but first I must procrastinate by knitting lots of little daffodils and crocheting children's hats for charity!

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Who Said Crochet Was Faster Than Knitting?

I think I have to disagree with what I'm hearing from most people, including my own daughter, who I now call "The crochet Ninja". I wouldn't mind being called a Knitting Ninja, if there was such a thing, and if I knitted fast enough to earn me that title.

More and more knitting and crochet projects are being added to my list of things to craft, and while I struggle to try and add more hand knit items to my Etsy store, most of the things I'm adding to my list are things I won't get paid for.

At the moment that list is in my mind, and hopefully one day before the middle of next month I'll have most of these done:
- Knit some daffodils for Irish Cancer Society (deadline mid-March)
- Crochet/knit some hats for Hats for Heroes for children with cancer, (no particular deadline but not to be put on the long finger as I usually do),
- Knit a Katniss Cowl for my daughter's birthday (deadline 11th March),
- Crochet treat bags for same daughter's birthday (deadline 11th March),
- Knit/Crochet some green headbands and Shamrock badges for St Patrick's Day (deadline fast approaching)
- Finish knitting my cardigan for which I have now finished the sleeves and realized I have to rip the top half of the back a second time, as my re-knitting wasn't following the right chart (there's always next winter!)
- *Finish crocheting the hat I started for my daughter:

2 evenings of crocheting a hat (Who said crochet was faster than knitting?)

* She doesn't need a new hat, but as she was hovering me while I was looking for crochet patterns on Ravelry, she saw the TweetHeart pattern I found and ordered me to make one for her, which I thought may be good practice for the charity hats I plan on making.

When I have all of the above done, I will still have to write and publish a few knitting patterns and hopefully I'll have time to think of new lovely knitted (and maybe crochet too;-) things to add to my Etsy shop.

In an ideal world, I would manage to finish most of these things on time, but unfortunately we don't live in that ideal world and I'm spending far too much time on Facebook, which is probably the main reason why the hat I started crocheting 3 days ago is far from being finished, and given the fact that I have to head into town, I don't think I'll be finishing it today either, unless I magically transform into a Crochet Ninja.

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Progress On My Blue Cabled Cardigan

Last month I started knitting the Chocolate Passion Cabled Jacket from a pattern I found on Ravelry and last time I wrote about it I had only knitted the bottom half of the back.

I have now progressed to nearly finishing the second front piece. It's a very unusual shape and due to my own stupidity I have had to rip parts of the first front as I was reading the instructions the wrong way. I won't blame the pattern writer, just my own little twisted mind that would not listen to logic.

I had the back finished (or so I thought!) and was knitting the first front piece when I realized that I had messed up with the back's underarms bind offs: I worked the underarms as if they were shaping decreases so I will have to rip about half of that piece, but I wanted to have both front pieces of the cardigan done before redoing the back, because the first side being still fresh in my mind, I thought it would be silly to work on the back before doing the second side.

To give you an idea of how it will look I took a selfie this morning, with the right side of the cardigan:

Right side of Blue Cabled Cardigan

I know it doesn't look like much right now, especially with the red lifeline still in it (that also acts as a row marker to make it easier to measure), but I'm hoping it will all come nicely together when finished.

It's not progressing very fast, as I am also working on a few things for my daughter's birthday coming up in March, which I hope will give me ideas for new knitty and crochetty stuff to add to my Etsy shop, and I'm also working on a bunch of knitted headbands too, while trying to find the time to finish my double knitting online class.

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Knitting And Crochet Books From The Library

Thanks to the Internet there are a lot of free resources online for knitting and crochet addicts like me who always want to learn more. From YouTube tutorials to free knitting patterns, as long as you have a working Internet connection, nothing can stop a knitter who owns yarn, however, sometimes it's nice to unplug and learn a new skill without having to glue your eyes to a computer or smartphone screen.

Being on a limited budget I don't buy many knitting books, but I know of a place I can always get a good reference book for little or no money: my local library's fee is €5 for one year, and my children can borrow books there for free as long as I am a member, so I have a good reason not to spend a lot of money while still reading books.

I used to borrow only novels, until I discovered the reference books aisle of my library, and this is what I came home with 3 weeks ago (and sadly have to return, but I will renew one of them for an extra 3 weeks because I hardly got the chance to open it):

The Encyclopedia of Crochet Techniques - Jan Eaton

100 Flowers to Knit & Crochet - Lesley Stanfield

Crochet to Go! - Ellen Gormley

 I bet the librarian thinks I'm a little mad!

If you are planning on buying knitting, crochet, or reference books for any other hobby you may have, but don't know which ones are the best for you, just have a look in your local library, there might be a book you've wanted to buy that turns up not to be that useful and would have wasted money on if you had bought it, or you might find a book you can't live (or knit) without and decide to buy it, like I did with my Knitter's Bible:

The Knitter's Bible - Claire Crompton

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Crochet Flowers to Light Up A Stormy Sunday

These Crochet flowers were made by my 11 and 3/4 old daughter. I hadn't realized she had made that many, but when I saw them in her crochet hooks case this morning, I took them out to have a better look and I just had to take this picture:

Crochet flowers made by my 11 and 3/4 year old

I'm a little jealous of her ability to learn crochet so fast: while it takes me hours to search for an idea of what to crochet, another hour to select the one I want, adding an unknown amount of time to learn, rip, try again and again until I'm happy with the result, this kid just asks me how I'm doing a crochet flower, listens to me starting to explain and stops me after 5 seconds telling me she got it, then she picks up a crochet hook and some wool and just goes ahead and has 8 of these crochet flowers done!



While I'm adding an 11 year-old brain to my Christmas wish list, I will leave you with a picture of a crochet flower I made, after a long day of learning, ripping, re-doing.... I hope this will cheer up your Sunday, as today this little Irish country is being battered once again by wind and rain, and the only thing there is to do is knit or crochet sitting by the fire:-)

Crochet flower made by me

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Knitting My Blue "Chocolate Passion" Cabled Cardigan

I've been hesitant about knitting large projects because of how time consuming they are, but rather than heading to Penneys and buy some cheap "I hope I won't look like everyone else around here" piece of junk, I've finally decided to start knitting a nice cardigan for myself.

A while ago, I bookmarked a free knitting cardigan pattern in Ravelry with nice cables that I really liked and I happened to have a blue yarn in my stash, not the one specified in the pattern, but a similar weight yarn for which I managed to get the same gauge.

The pattern is called Chocolate Passion jacket with cables but of course, since the wool I'm using is blue, I can't call it that.

January isn't the best time to cast on a winter cardigan pattern, especially since I'm still at the same time learning how to crochet, trying to stock up my Etsy shop with more knitted headbands and studying my double-knitting online course, but since I live in Ireland where the weather can be unpredictable, I guess I'll still be able to wear it in May or June, in between 2 mini heatwaves. And if my knitting is too slow, there's still next winter (a full 11 months and 3 weeks' long one, ha ha!).

It's a funny knitting pattern for a cardigan, as it begins with the back, but at about a quarter high, and the lower back piece is knitted with the fronts, (I guess I'll have to do some sewing afterwards to join them all together, sigh!).

The cardigan has lots of lovely cables and the picture of the finished knitted cabled jacket looks amazing: I hope mine will look beautiful too. If it turns out the way it's supposed to, I'll be wearing it a lot to show off my cable knitting skills!

Here's what I have knitted so far:

Middle back of my blue "chocolate passion" cable cardigan

I'll try and keep sharing my progress here, in between crochet and double-knitting bits and bobs and hopefully some of the ideas that keep popping up in my head - I think I'm suffering from knitting ADHD, wanting to do it all at the same time:-)

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