I got these pretty charms and the bracelet to hang them on from Primark (I don’t think they exist in the US, but I bet Forever21 has something close) with the intention of using them as stitch markers. They work like a charm (ho ho) and would make great (inexpensive) gifts for knitting friends. You can then purchase them charms on other special occasions to add to their collection. Stitch markers with clips would also work; I know Atomic Knitting makes beautiful ones.

The regular charms from Primark fit needles up to 3.5mm.

There are some adorable charms in the kids section too, but they’re smaller (and cheaper) and will fit needles up to 2.75mm. Perfect for socks!

This is a colourwork hat I’m working on with designs from the Perpetual Colourwork Calendar (October). I’ve already attempted filming one tutorial about creating your own colourwork charts, but the lighting was so poor that I think I will try again. Sorry for the delay!

The needles are KnitPro Symfonie (short 3mms with 60cm cable) and the yarn is Pure Wool Superwash from Nako.

If you go to the Primark in Birmingham, say hello to the Bullring Bull in his woolly jumper. :)

Have you read?

1. Stitch Marker Knitting Patterns
2. Printable Knitting Calendar

Anyone knitting mittens for Christmas? I’m going to be knitting these beautiful Chawton Mittens by Anne Blayney when I get half a chance. At the moment I’m too busy creating a few last minute goodies for you. These gift tags are my first offering. Cut them out, fold them over and then attach them to your Christmas gifts. As usual, you can fill in the care symbols according to the directions on your ball-band, so that your recipient knows how to take care of their beautiful hand-wrought gift.

Don’t forget you can also download the KnitLove gift tags for free (or download the whole collection for lots of other wrapping printables).

And here’s a sneak peek at what’s coming on Monday…

Charts! Coloured pencils! Calendars! Ooooh! :)

Now that I have written my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo, I’m finally catching up on comments. Many apologies for being so late, but I hope the Christmas gifts I have planned will somewhat make up for my tardiness. :(

And because I realised that I haven’t held a giveaway in ages, I’m going to be giving a copy of the (printable!) Calendar to two random members of the Laylock Designs group on Ravelry every week until the end of the year. Yay!

Have a great weekend, knitters! :)

Have you read?

1. Knit Love – Gift Tags with Garment Care Symbols
2. The Gift of Gift Tags
3. KnitLove to Give

A gift is not worth giving unless you’d rather keep it yourself.

I read this long ago in a novel and since then I’m reminded of it every time I’m buying a gift, or trying hard to convince myself not to part with it. For example, I bought a couple skeins of Debbie Bliss SoHo the other day, which I believe is now discontinued. It’s in that ingenius blue/lilac combination and oh, what a cool hat I could make with it. Something floppy for an autumn pallette of browns, blues, and purples. Siigh.

But I restrained myself (really, I did!). They were the last two left in the yarn shop, and they’re now safe in the hands of a very capable knitter, who will doubtless make something fabulous out of them.

You may remember the gift tags (with garment care symbols on the back) from a while back. They were one of my gifts to you. :) Well you loved them so much that I decided to extend them into a whole range of printable knitty goodies for gift-giving. You can download it here. The PDF file is stuffed with everything I could think of that you could possibly need to give, send, present, yield, lend, donate, surrender, devote, label, write, organise, entrust, relinquish, pass down, bequeath or swap:

• Labels
• Gift Tags
• Writing paper
• Notecards
• Envelope
• Stickers
• Bookmarks
• Bookplates
• Wrappers
• Sleeves
• Small sleeves
• Pillowboxes
• Straight sheaths
• DPN sheaths
• Yarn bag
• Tips & tricks for printing, cutting, and construction.

You can view all the photos here on Flickr. I hope you enjoy them. I have at least one more collection planned, with useful things like calendars, index cards, invites, etc. Suggestions are most welcome!

Have you read?

1. Knit Love – Gift Tags with Garment Care Symbols
2. Educating Non-Knitters on Garment Care
3. Printable Christmas Gift Tags

These types of knitted slippers – called ‘çetik’ (cheh-teek) – are quite common in Turkish villages. Most village women produce such handiwork to supplement the household income. They are gorgeous, comfortable, and made by very skilled hands, and the next time you’re in Turkey, I hope you make it a priority to purchase at least one pair. I’ve been given a few pairs over the years, often brought by friends and acquaintances from their own villages, but this pair I’d like to share with you is particularly special to me.

They were given to me by my hostess on a school trip to a village just outside Ankara. Our aim was to fulfil the ’service’ requirements of our IB curriculum; we were to play games and teach the children, deliver our old computers to them, and paint a pretty mural in their dining hall. Our work took us two days, and several families in the village put us up for one night. Although we were the ones bestowing the supposed “charity,” it was the generosity of our hostess that really touched me. She laid on lavish meals for my friend and I, seated on the floor with the traditional large, round tray. Their house seemed very spacious to me. Everyone I knew lived in the city, in flats that were crammed with furniture. Their timber house had a barn downstairs, and stone steps that led down to a courtyard where chickens wandered about. One of the children brought in a kid, which ran up and down the hall baa-ing for its mother. On the other side of the house was a small garden with mulberry trees and a vegetable patch. Further on were the barns that housed their cows. The village smelt rather pungently of animals and manure, and you had to watch your step as you walked along the narrow streets, and give way to herds of goats (and goatherds). On the way to school in the morning the children picked daisies and poppies and pistachios.

It looked almost idyllic to me, and yet our hostess was very apologetic and humble. She said things must be so much nicer and cleaner in the city, she was sorry they couldn’t do better. She brought out two large bags, one with knitted slippers, and one with headscarves with edges worked in delicate needle lace. I chose this pair of slippers, and a lovely dark red headscarf. I thought the bold, beautiful strawberry motif was unusual, not like the traditional, abstract motifs of Turkish socks. I imagined my hostess deciding to knit something a little different one day, sitting on the divan, alone in the living room while the children were at school and her husband asleep (he worked night shifts at the mine), crossing her legs in the shalvar she wore, and expertly choosing the colours. The black shows off the red and green to perfection. The knitting is tight, so that the slipper is hard-wearing, and the strawberries which appear upside down when the slippers are laid flat, smile up at me the right way round when I wear them. I don’t wear them too often though, because they’re so special.

They remind me of the strawberries my Granddad grows. When I was little and we visited England every other summer, my Granddad would present me with the first big, ripe, juicy, sweet, bright red strawberry of the season, and I would eat it with my Weetabix (another treat we couldn’t get in Turkey) for breakfast. They remind me of the cold winters of Turkey, and the warm red glow of the summers. They remind me of Morris’s ‘Strawberry Thief‘, and of the strawberries ripening outside the cottage right now, in Wales. But most of all, I suppose, they remind me of the generosity of this knitter. I hope she doesn’t consider herself poor for living in a village rather than a city. I hope she realises that she’s an artist, and knows that I treasure these slippers she spent hours working on. I know they must have been hard to part with.