Skoleppar Collection

Along with my pal Marg, a big crocheter, I have been asked to do a Craft Fair at rather short notice next weekend. Knowing from experience that we don't sell much, we are having a joint stand and splitting the expense, and it's a bit of a mad scramble to get stuff together. I am rather sneakily putting out to sell all the Crimble pressies I have been knitting, because if they do sell, I will still have time to knit and replace them (and with a bit of luck, SO'd Law will operate and I'll make heaps of money!). I've also made a pattern leaflet up, as I find these go down rather well. This is the piccy for the front. The blue and turquoise pieces on the right are destined for a Specs case. Scissors keepers or memory stick holders at top and bottom, mug cosy at extreme left, lilac completed spec case next, one of pair of inserts in middle.

Tangling in the Wash

Sounds like the next village to Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh, doesn't it? I was making a load of skoleppar scissors keepers for Crimble. (See entry for 2nd June) Instead of ribbon this time, I thought I would crochet braids, leave the ends unsewn until after fulling in the washing machine. If the ends are threaded through the keeper as well as the scissors, then they don't keep parting company. The piccy shows what happened when I put eleven in the wash at the same time! They did a complete tourniquet act round the sleeve of one of my silk blouses. Undoing them was like reverse bobbin lace making. I only had to break one thread though.

I reckon this size is good for memory sticks for the males in the family - for the boys, I am going to put a couple of very old pix of themselves on them.

A larger "keeper" has worked out well as a specs case. Not quite as big as underfoot skoleppar, and still with the opening of one angled section. Evidently Keith's bright yellow and orange one caused a lot of comments at his Luncheon Club today. Because both sides aren't seen at once, different patterns were used - stripes on one side, 2x2 blocks on the other. I'll leave the reader to guess which was the easier side to knit.

Next project for Crimble is huggie muggies - still in the wash, pix to follow.

Icelandic shoe inserts

Picked up an incredibly interesting book at the Centre for Knitting & Crochet on Saturday. Its Icelandic Knitting Using Rose Patterns by Helene Magnusson. She has her own website (hername and dot com). Half the book is research on these wonderful little knitted items which used to be made to fit their soft shoes about a century ago. The other half is new patterns for garments and accessories using the patterns found within them. No actual pattern for a shoe insert itself, so I emailed the author, who wrote back instantly that she didn't think about it until the book was well on its way to being published. She then Googled for my name and came up with another person with my name in New York who is also a knitter nad wants to improve her French! Really uncanny, a sort of Internet doppelganger.
Anyway, I have made a trial insert, a proper pair with stripes to get the sizing right, and am halfway through a pair with a complicated pattern in the middle. Pix later. In the meantime, have done a mini-pair and joined them together for a scissors holder. Should make a good workshop.