Presents - Wrist Warmers and Silk Flower Brooch

It was my friend Nicki's birthday yesterday and I made her some wrist warmers in purple cotton.

Purple Polka Dot Wrist Warmers


When the cotton yarn I'd ordered from eBay arrived, the purple was dull and dreary. It's a lovely yarn but the colour was terrible. So I ordered some yarn dyes and dyed it. The result was a lovely deep purple, much more intense and a lovely shade. I am so pleased with my first attempt at dying yarn. The only problem was, despite tying up the two balls of yarn in skeins, one tangled up so badly it took me 3 hours to just untangle a quarter of it! It's still all tangled up... luckily the other one was okay and I could knit with that.

The pattern is my own. There's a small pattern along the bottom of the front and then the lacing with the polka dot ribbon.

On the back I've used a cable pattern as I find it means that the wrist warmers keep their shape better this way, which is especially important as I've used cotton. Cotton tends to loosen up when you wear it, and it usually means washing the wrist warmers to make sure they tighten up again.

Nicki seemed very pleased with them, especially as she'd been nicking the wrist warmers I made for her daughter (see here, Funky Punk Wrist Warmers) for Christmas. These match Nicki's coat much better. :-)


Instead of buying her flowers, I made her one to keep and wear.

Rhapsody in Silk Flower Brooch

This is my first silk flower made with dupioni silk in wonderful shades of duck egg blue, turquoise and purple, teal taffeta, ivory organza and hand crocheted flower and petals. Each layer of silk and taffeta was embroidered with embroidery cotton.

There's a lovely turquoise button in the centre with three teeny purple fresh water pearls for a finishing touch.
I am pleased with how the silk flower turned out so will make more. I like the vintage, shabby chic feel of it.

Water Lily Brooch - Present

This is yet another flower design - even more petals (not layers):

Water Lily Brooch

This is a present for my friend Liz whose birthday it is tomorrow. :-) It is here presented with my gorgeous teal silk scarf.


The picture below shows the colours better as it's the only one I managed to take without a flash. I've used teal taffeta, dark green, turquoise and fluorescent green crystal organza and blue and pale mint tulle. The centre is a teal button adorned with teeny tiny pearlescent Miyuki drop beads.

The brooch is about 9 cm (3.5") in diameter but very light and will look good worn casually or elegant.
This is the third of my designs.

Currently available:

• Poppy design
• Peony design
• Water Lily design

in a large range of colours and sizes either as hair barrettes, hair clips or brooches. Contact me for a custom design. Prices vary depending on design and size.

Raspberry Shawl

This is the shawl I've been knitting for the past week.

It was a bit of a mixed bag as far as the knitting was concerned. I'd just knitted several lace patterns and this pattern seemed to be boring compared to knitting lace, which made it difficult for me to focus and meant I made mistakes, although none of them are obvious. However, I did make a few changes, partly because of the mistakes. My edge wasn't as clean and tidy as I'd hoped so I edged it with crochet and emphasised the ridges to get even more of a 'shibori' look, which I like better. It's also longer and I didn't include the tabs from the original pattern.

The Rowan Kidsilk in Vino I've used is absolutely stunning and the simple pattern and texture work perfectly together. My lovely flower brooch matches as well. :-)

All in all, I am very pleased with the finished result and think it was well worth it. Laura's book 'Boutique Knits' contains lots of lovely patterns that can easily be adapted to suit you. I'd highly recommend it to who wants to knit something a bit different.