A free Pattern for double knit vanilla socks! A little present from me to you!
These knit up amazingly in both our Rustic with Alpaca and the Hilltop DK yarns! The Hilltop particularly is a fab hard wearing DK sock yarn which even manages to survive my husband’s hard wearing!
I hope you enjoy knitting these up. I LOVE how fast they trip off the needles!!
Hop on over to Facebook and share the finished socks on our group!!
So last Month I told you some of Wanda’s story….
Up this month is Baabara!
Baabara is a mule most likely, Welsh white… something along those lines! She is the white faced one in this picture and is the MOST suspicious sheep you will ever meet!!
When they come up for feed in the field, Baabara is always right at the back! She is the hardest to catch, utterly unmotivated by food and a talented escape artist like her friend Wanda!
I say friend, but the pair of them tolerate on another and that’s about it!! Baabara prefers to mix with a few of the Llanwenogs!
She was given to us by neighbour who had her as an odd one out in their flock of Lleyn sheep to keep Wanda company in our fields and it helped to keep Wanda from wandering!!
She has a beautiful full soft fleece and it makes for gorgeous yarn!!
You can try out some of her wares here!! All spun up locally here in West Wales and dyed by me!
Since moving to the smallholding I wear a lot of hats, literally and metaphorically!! I have a few favourites…
My lattice hat, knitted up in a gorgeous sock weight alpaca yarn I bought on the Great London Yarn Crawl, my River Knits yarn hat, which is a gorgeous sock weight yarn and I knitted a super slouchy beanie hat in it!
More recently I have been knitting up hats for a few people around here and using double knit yarn!
This one is knitted in our hilltop blend and it is rarely off the farmers head at the moment!
I have also been finding the boy’s hat strewn about the place…. this one was found out by the stream in the last cold snap frozen solid!!
It has now been thawed and washed!!
I have a number of hat designs out and up for sale in the Etsy shop, on Ravelry and on Lovecrafts including this Queen Bee hat
And…. I am working on a heap more designs!! All inspired by the natural world around here in Wales!
Here are some sneaky peeks!!
What are your favourite or go to hat patterns??
I still have a Baable on my to knit list!! Knit my mum one but never got round to mine!! 🤦♀️
I often get a lot of comments as people see me knit out and about, or see the yarns, or my knitted socks….. “I wish I could knit”
Well the honest truth is it takes practice, but its actually quite easy!! and realistically if you can knit, purl and can google what the other terminology means then you can pretty much knit ANYTHING!! This thought is borne out in some of the FB groups for knitters I am in and seeing some of the amazing first projects people have put out!!
My first project, when I relearnt to knit in my 20’s was a blanket! Several million (well it felt like it towards the end) small knitted squares and then I taught myself to crochet to put them all together! This blanket now resides in the boys room on the rocking chair, has sat round my shoulders whilst I fed them in the small wee hours and might need the odd repair as they now haul it about over their heads to be ghosts etc.
I then knit a LOT of hats!!! At first seamed and then after discovering the local Stitch and Bitch group in Cardiff and support and enabling properties that came with, I moved onto in the round, graduated to socks, sweaters and shawls and never looked back!!
Then I started to dye and design my own patterns for things I couldn’t find quite what I wanted in the huge bank of patterns out there in the world.
So I guess I am saying….
I am going to launch a series of videos over on the YouTube Channel for learning how to knit….!!
Eek there I have said it!
I also plan to resurrect Maker’s Monday over on the Channel and do a monthly update of what I have been making, whether that be knitting, crochet, sewing, spinning or weaving, dyeing, designing etc! So feel free to hop on over subscribe and check out the videos I have made already over there!!
This Wednesday I am going to look at a pattern or two from another source!
I am currently knitting up the fabulous Arboreal sweater by Jenn Steingass (this link is in Ravelry, I am afraid there are no other links I could find where she sells the patterns outside Ravelry)
I am knitting it up using our Rustic with alpaca base which is currently up in the Etsy shop. I am using the natural beautiful grey base colour, a small amount of cream from the Rustic range and the Gentian for the blue.
It is knit up from the top down and all the colourwork is in a yoke around the neck. Beautiful leafy patterns!
The yarn is knitting up beautifully, Roger at the mill puts a lovely twist into the wool and it really is turning into one of favourites to knit with. I am also loving the combination of the natural grey of the wool with the hand dyed Gentian colour way.
True to my form though, as this knitting is for me it gets left to the bottom of the list, so was put aside for all the Christmas knitting and put aside for the custom orders….. but I plan to get back to it at least one night a week now and keep some progress going!
Jennifer Steingass has many many beautiful yoked sweater patterns so I hope this is my first of many! In fact logging into Rav has set me off again and I now rather like the Forestland sweater….. Sooo many patterns sooooo little time…..
I got you covered!!!
I have been working on quite a few patterns recently!! Including these!! (With more coming in the new year) All inspired by my love of nature and living close to nature!
We have the Queen Bee Hat and I am chuffed to bits with how this has turned out so I made mitts and socks to go with!!
These have all been knitted using the Tyddyn Bryn Rustic with Alpaca range of DK wool and they are sooo wearable and WARM!!
I have also finally sorted the pattern out for the Jewels shawl (thank you my fabulous tech editor for reminding me!!)
This is knitted in a sock weight yarn with a silk content to give it maximum drape! The Tyddyn Bryn Smooshie bade is perfect for this!
All these patterns are available on Etsy, Ravelry and Loveknitting!!
Still on the go we have the Hazels shawl…. which I seem to be taking forever to write up let alone chart….
And the Hive shawl, which is nearly written (honest mum!! 😂😘) which need blocking final photos and a trip to the tech editor!!
I am also now working on a range of foraging and smallholding inspired patterns!! Mushrooms, more leaves, animals and even a hedgehog set of patterns which will be released to raise money for our local hoggie hogspital who nursed our beautiful Holly so well!!
I have knitted up some fabulous sweaters for the boys using our beautiful rustic with alpaca yarns!!
You can see which one is more impressed at the photo shoot for his new jumper!!
The yarn is a gorgeous blend of next to skin soft yarn!! And the colourways lend themselves beautifully to colour work patterns and these yoked sweaters, the Diplodocus sweater by Kate Oates is perfect for my two dinosaur enthusiasts!!
We have all sorts of colours sure to please your dino lovers too!!
He really does love it! Just didn’t want to take photos 😂🥴 Here are the colours we have available in the Etsy shop!
Well I have developed a kit just for you!!!
The kit contains:
A perfect gift for a knitter or crocheted for Christmas to give them a taste of creating their own unique yarns!!
The yarn is a gorgeous pure Llanwenog yarn, from the sheep here on our holding. These sheep grow enormously bouncy fleeces and we take them to a local mill, literally a few miles up the road from us here is West Wales where they get scoured, sorted and spun up into a wonderful yarn, which is next to skin soft, and fabulous to knit with.
The yarn literally drinks in the colours!!
What colour would you dye??
Find the kits here!!
I have been working super hard recently and have dyed up a ton of yarn and made a few new products as well!!
I have finished dyeing last year clip and spin ready to receive this years which is partly being spun into sock weight!!! This includes the Rustic with alpaca range of heathered colourways….
And I have been able to introduce the Pure Llanwenog DK range to you all!!
Both of these are are so bouncy and next to skin soft!! I have knitted up sweaters for both of the boys!! (But that is for another post!!)
The yarns are available in the Etsy shop here
And I have even helped you choose by creating a rainbow mini skein box! Which comes with a beautiful snowflake progress keeper!
I’ve been fiddling about putting together a little about the yarn video!!
What do you all think!?!
You can find our yarns over on Etsy
They truly are a joy to work with!!!
Watch this space for some new patterns releases coming soon!!!
Tyddyn Bryn 