Sssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

All I can say, is Erssie might have something in the first issue of this.
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The Anticraft Samhain 2008

The first of the surprise knitting patterns is up on the Anticraft. It is for my pattern Pequenos Relojes de Arena which means Little Clocks of Sand i.e hourglasses.


I had a lot of fun with this pattern knitting it in the Neon colours and having it knitted up for me by Joeli Caparco in the bright Lorna's Laces colours.

Big thanks to Stevie of Raid Zero who did the pics and of course Jenni Gwiazdowski for modelling it and being so patient. I loved her shoes as well! We got lots of good pics, and had fun dressing her up in clothes to show off the socks in her lovely shoes. Do click on these photos to see the giant versions. We are also putting more photos on Flickr of this day.

You can also see in the post below, that I have given some video support to demonstrate the 2nd row of this stitch, which is not difficult but just tricky to understand in knitting abbreviations and words. Also check out the ErssieKnits channel on YouTube which demonstrates different methods of casting on, although I need to add a couple of my own which are much easier for people like me with hand problems.

Do check out my tips on completing the 2nd row

The Anticraft Samhain 2008

The Samhain issue of the anticraft is up; this issue has a Dia de los Muertos (Mexican Day of the Dead) theme and I have a few things included in it.

Whilst trying to sketch different motifs for a chart, I sent some sketches to Zabet and she liked one or two very rough drawings and used one as the basis for the cover above.

This skull & cherries sketch has also been converted to knitting/crochet chart, see the Anticraft to download a copy. It could be knitted or crocheted too (thanks to microrevolt for allowing me to use their software for this). If someone knitted it up that would be really cool (No way it is going to be me though, I am just too slow to catch up on my own ideas!)



There is another chart included, Calavera Naranja (Orange Sugar Skull) based on the artwork and skulls made for dia de los muertos.


This came from a very crude sketch above, and Cindy Moore of Fitter Knitter
who is a technical illustrator and graphic designer (and miles better than me in things like Illustrator or In Design) made up a chart from it. The eye sockets are left blank to do some embroidery. I am knitting this onto an accessory which will be a surprise in the Anticraft later this month.

So, three of my knitting patterns will be included later this month, all along the same kind of lines and two are perfect for any skellie or skull lovers, one is a textured pattern of a simple nature (without skellies).


In addition to this, I have a couple of other charts perfect for the Dia de los Muertos theme. One is a little dancing skellie and top hat based on the sketch above, and the other is a repeating skulls pattern which I am using on some stockings. Both are available to download from Ravelry.

New Babies

My friend Fi has had her 2nd child. The first child Alice P, knows me as knit knit. That has been her name for me for the last 5 yrs and she is used to me knitting for her. Knowing how she has enjoyed being the only child and receiver of knitwear in this family, I couldn't knit for new brother born today without including her. I had an idea though. I have written to her and sent her the above beanie in her favourite colours. And I have enclosed beanies below in colours she is not too bothered about, and appropriate for her new tiny baby brother Tom.

The thing about knitting for new babes is that their heads are really too small and delicate for a lot of fussy designs or scratchy yarns, and the Mum's think they look gorgeous in anything but quite often don't want their babes to look too different. So, as simple as it is, the little rolled brim stockinette beanie hat really is one of the best designs they could wear at that age. It has made me feel inadequate as a designer, especially with those and my simple stockinette socks recently....people will think I am regressing!


Anyway, to make up for their simplicity, the pattern is free from Ravelry and contains a few suggestions for coloured stripes. I am sure some knitters will find the size and instructions handy and they only take an hour or two to knit (even for me). Great for using up leftovers too of course. I called them Buster Baby Beanies, short for stashbuster. The blue and Red striped one is Tommy after newborn Tom and the Rasta colours I called Bobby after Bob Marley of course!!

I was hoping to see the Anticraft patterns up today, but have just seen a post and their Samhain issue will be up on Monday October 6th.

I am off to knit another something for them, and perhaps some more easy baby stuff.

I am knitting...loads actually, but once again it is for a publisher. So totally confidential! In the meantime let me entertain you with another book review...

I have just finished a book called The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. It is a Gothic thriller in the style of a Bronte novel, or the Turn of The Screw. Secrets of birth, hidden characters within a decaying building and a narrator with a secret of her own. I couldn't put this book down, and although at first I was worried that the author would be deliberately creating a modern novel that is a rip off of a Bronte, I have to say she did it very well with no excuses and there were many little pointers within this novel to all her influences. This book being of the 21st Century, was witty and cynical in a way you would not expect in a Ninteenth Century novel, and not all sub-plots have happy endings. My only criticism, is that there were one or two characters that to me felt empty, and also, I could not get a sense of the narrator. She too seemed to be empty, ageless and unemotional despite succumbing to an illness at some point that my other half likes to call "Non specific Victorian fever' which in a Nineteenth century is nearly always semi fatal but not quite so dramatic here. The narrator of this story is no Jane Eyre, she does not seem to be sentimental or romantic despite carrying her secret.

Do read this though, I loved the writing, here is a little snippet that drew me in just as I was about to put the book down to go to sleep at 1am, it kept me up until gone 3 am:

"Come Back!" she cried
"I am going to tell you a story - a marvellous story!"
I did not stop
"Once upon a time there was a haunted house...."
I reached the door. My fingers closed on the handle.
"Once upon a time there was a library...."
I opened the door and was about to step into its emptiness when in a voice hoarse with something like fear, she stopped me in my tracks.
"Once upon a time there were twins -"
I waited until the words stopped ringing in the air and then despite myself, I looked back

The style in which the inner narrator tells a story to our narrator is very potent, it has all the brooding darkness of a Grimm's fairytale, it makes your skin prickle with its foreboding, and I can't explain why the fear of something being revealed is so much worse than the actual events.

This also reminded me of how much I was influenced by Jane Eyre as a child. I saw the film with Elizabeth Taylor as Jane a long time before I read the book, and was totally haunted myself with the mad woman hidden within the house. In fact, at the age of 6, I put on my mother's wig, my mother's dressing gown and came down the stairs and acted as a different but disturbed person to my poor little brother only aged about 3 or 4 at the time. He honestly believed that we had a secret mad sister living upstairs in our home in Cyprus! Years later, my mother shocked me by saying that she had given birth to a daughter before me, and that meant I had a secret older sister. She never told my brother. She died. I told my brother a couple of years ago, and had so little reaction from it, I am convinced that he thought I was inventing it again just as I did when we were children! I don't normally talk of personal stuff on the blog, but that was so relevant to the book I could not help myself. We all have secrets, every one of us an our stories in the right hands could be penned as a Gothic horror!

And Skeinspotted!

We knitters always like a good spotting of a bit of knitting, whether it is worn knitwear or actual knitting activity within a film or a book. Often it annoys us, because it will be the quintessential old granny clicking her needles, or someone really nerdy and the knitting adds to their lack of appeal. We tut, we sigh, they just don't understand and have not caught up we think. Anyway, The Thirteenth Tale has a very good bit of knitting. One of the characters, who is a fairytale like grandmother or kindly with baking and knitting, finds her knitting takes on more significance than she would care to see:

"So it bothered me, that night of the pitch black sky, to find that I had [accidentally] knitted a second heel. Once I'd done it and lost my young man. Twice and I'd lost my sister. Now a third time. I had no-one left to lose. There was only me now. I looked at the sock. Grey wool. A plain thing. It was meant for me................................I set to unravelling the extra heel. What was the point of that you might wonder. Well I didn't want to be found with it....I imagined them saying 'They found her with her knitting in her lap and guess what? She'd turned the heel twice!' I didn't want them saying that and so undid it"

Thought that might amuse those of you who are book lovers and knitters!

Gorgeous Knitting!

I am inlcuding these pieces of work, just because they are so beautiful in every way. They are designed by Marnie Maclean who has a wonderful talent of making the yarn work for her in complete curvaceousness and drape, no lumps in sight.

How beautiful! that is all I need to say. I have chosen to post these two pics of Marnie enjoying the modelling, you can see more serious pics of these projects on her blog/website (where her patterns including this one are for sale)

Ice Baby Beanie in Hip Knits Silk Aran

This Erssie Knits beanie pattern is now published in baby sizes Newborn, 6mths and 12mths.
It is available free with the purchase of Hip Knits Silk Aran go to their website for more details. This silk is so beautifully soft, it reminds me of the sort of consistency of organic cotton but with a sheen. Hipknits have these silks in Jades, Blues, Mauves, Oranges, Reds, Pinks and are always updating their shades as well as providing custom dyes so you could adapt this beanie to any season, any gender really.

Ice Baby Beanie

Not all Grey Days are Dull.......

I had less than 2 days to come up with a little gift for my pregnant friend when I realised that everything I have in my 'babywear' cupboard was either gender specific or biker knitwear. This hat was perfect, I did actually draw up the chart myself in XL but have realised, it looks very similar to a lot of other snowflake borders on kids hats but perhaps that is because in order to fit onto a little hat, geometrically this is the maximum and most simple shape of this kind that can fit. Never mind, it only took 10 mins to draw a snowflake and a couple of floats in between.

The yarn is hand dyed, Hip Knits 100% Silk in Grey and Silver donated to me by Kerrie, I only used a tiny part of each skein so plenty left for other baby stuff.

Watch out for the free pattern of this on the Hip Knits website as I donated the pattern to them in return for the use of their yarn. This could work just as well in blues or pinks if you wanted to be gender specific. It is quick and easy to do and perfect for a beginner.

An old classic updated

Some of you that know me will probably remember that last year during the winter, I handed out some of my clothes and some of my personal knits to the homeless people I met along the way to my knitting club. One of these people, I gave my very favourite plain ribbed hats in red and turqoise but knew that they were so quick to knit I would be able to do them again.

Well, here I am 18mths later only just getting round to re-knitting and improving this absoloute classic of a plain ribbed hat. I find in general that ribbed hats, although you would expect them to be easy and all the same, vary greatly in their shape and the poorer of these can have very clumsy decreases. So with this I have made sure that the purl areas decrease to nothing and the rib areas narrow to a point at the crown.

And the yarn? That is some yarn hand dyed by Woolly Wormhead. It is Wensleydale and is somewhere between a DK and a light worsted/Aran. I knitted it on 5mm needles to give it more of a lacy and holey look. Can you see as well the way the colours worked into a spiral on the crown? Am I clever? No, it is pure accident, so no emails asking me how to plan spirals like this in a hand dyed space yarn.

I also find that the Wensleydale wools and other British breeds other than merino are very thirsty fibres and suffering from dry skin myself, it can feel like two bits of sandpapers rubbing together despite the surfaces remaining shiny. I lovingly rubbed hair conditioner into this hat and left it in a warm soak. Then rinsed it in cold water, just like I would my own hair. You can see the fuzziness this has caused on one of the photos, that is not me with bad camera focus, it actually looks like that!

Some More Book Reviews For You.......................

I was very excited when I saw a huge box from Amazon and had only just remembered that amidst my chaotic week last week I had ordered a set of new books. Here are the books I bought and I'll explain why.

Punk Knits Sharon Ross

This is somewhat similar to an idea I had about 8 or so years ago, shame I didn't get there first! however, I found myself mildly disappointed in some of the projects and very happy with some others. I realised that the ones I admire most, are the simplest but the most tailored in their design. I am not against holes, ladders and the like but I have more admiration if these can occur at the right places and actually add to the shaping of a garment. Yes I know this seems to be against the philosophies of Punk, but being from the Punk generation myself, I remember most clearly that women like myself who would have been plain in any other walk of life could use the make up and clothes to our advantage, highlighting the good things about ourselves(in me it used to be my cheekbones and eyes) and hiding away the things that weren't so great (my lack of boobs). Therefore, despite its holeyness and grunginess, punk should sort of flatter, be dramatic and make a statement all rolled into one, but I didn't feel these knits were strong enough for that.

Fitted Knits Stefanie Japel
Flick through the pages and you would imagine that these tailored sweaters and garments would all be in 4ply and 2ply and would have endless instructions on tailoring. You would be wrong, Stefanie can make even the bulkiest of yarns on 8mm look as delicate as a fine lace weight yarn and her methods of waist shaping involve a clever use of stitch type. I realised that being a big girl myself these days, that I won't be tempted to drape myself in bagginess to hide it, I will most definitely be attracted to the waist shaping and bell sleeves and I am a big fan of deep ribbing and other simple features that make a garment look irresistible. Yes, I could have been ever so proud if I had written this book. I wouldn't be squirming inside for the want of putting someone else's name on it! As I flicked through this book I found myself slowly turning a shade of green with envy. Stefanie is working on another title at the moment, can't wait to see what goes into that one.

Whip Your Knitting Into Shape - Domiknitrix Jennifer Stafford
And talking of envy, this is a most beautiful book. I loved this, a true mistress of her craft with regard to techniques, shaping and charts and I can see the pages packed with variety proving that she is no one trick pony. The knits are quite tailored, but the technique is so simple and beautiful, you don't get the feeling that the author just cashed in on the new wave of alternative knitting books for the sake of it. In these pages you can see a lifetime's achievements and know she has driven this project herself. I am quite excited though that the book I worked on earlier this year (compilation of patterns by The Anticraft) which is coming out this Autumn is handled by the same publishers as this one.

Naughty Knits Nikol Lohr
Cheeky, funny, naughty but not as totally original as you would think. A little too much lingerie of the same sort of shapes and some projects taking up too much space that are nothing more than an adapted scarf. I wonder how many of these ideas were the author's or how many were pushed upon her by her advisers.

Now for myself.....I feel like writing a really alternative book about knitting that will shock and offend even if it didn't sell.....................



Tams Mary Rowe

Lastly this is a book recommended to me by Woolly Wormhead's Ruth Paisley. Ruth was right to recommend this book and how relieved I was to see that the way I had worked out designing a Tam pattern on a wedge is indeed the correct way to be doing it. One look at this book and I knew it was going to be a gem, I just want to plunge into it straight away! It is isn't often I see something in a book I hadn't thought of myself, but in this case, it confirms that I am not wasting my time on lengthy techniques when a short cut exists.

There is no short cut, designing a Fair Isle pattern that works as individual shapes but again as part of the whole as a kaleidescope is absolute genius, shows how mathematically intricate our ancestors must have been. Shows the perfect relationship between mathematics and aesthetics. The circular intricately patterned Tam fits in with all those creation theories about Fibonacci sequences and fractals and how a higher being has hidden these messages for us in flowers and other objects of natural beauty. Knitting is seen as a handicraft, as something that our ancestors did out of necessity but as a separate skill from intellect or book learning. I believe this is not so, those of us that knit totally understand the wholeness we feel when we achieve something close to perfection and crafts have long been relied upon by historians as a way to find out how a society was linked to their spiritual life, whether this is shown in the henges or the paintings and carvings or the brightly patterned clothes they wore.

Erssie's Rasta Style Beanie
(Jaeger Shetland Aran - Unrealeased and DB Aran discontinued)

I wasn't going to make one of these, thought there would be far too many and more superior versions around. However, i was shocked at the quality of some of the beanies in these colours on sale, lots of scratchy acrylics and really garish acrylics and bad styles. Obviously the nice ones I see on the streets must be made by a loving wife, Mum, Auntie, Gran because I don't see ones like that for sale. I was also horrified to see that shops sold beanies like this with false dreadlocks hanging out. Now, the reason I found those hard to swallow was that of the people I know who have committed to dreads, it has been a long term committment for them or part of their culture, not a stupid party joke. I feel the same way about those fake punk wigs as well and office workers who say "I'm going as a punk" when it's a Christmas fancy dress party. Being a punk is so muh more than hair and music, anyone who was around in the mid to late 70's will realise it wasn;t about being a circus act.




More Swatches...................
Oh yes, here are some swatches in Bamboo and soy silk. I liked the soy silk although it can get a bit crumpled but so can cotton. It seems to drape well be is firm enough for a good tight stitch definition. bamboo on the other hand seemed to feel floppy and insubstantial, at the moment I have a love hate relationship with it.

I would have to commit for a whole garment to know how I realy feel about these yarns. Also, the sheen on them does mean it is hard to make something suitable for all types of people, it is slinky and feminine though. I know it would probably be perfect for a top for me, if I had a bit of waist shaping with the drape, it could make a good alternative to the long sleeved floppy T-shirts I wear. I forgot to say about the bamboo as well, it is so stretchy! That could be perfect for a T-shirt or fitted skirt although on the recommended needle size, you can see daylight through the stitches. I think it is the unfamiliarity of the yarns that leaves me stumped for the moment as to exactly what I'd do with them. however, thanks to SWTC, I have some samples to play with.

How about a pretty baby girls hat and socks? Or some hair accessories for me?
Swatches below from left to right, Crimson 100% soy silk, Greens - 100% bamboo, Parrot - soy silk

Introducing Jonelle and SWTC...........................

I first came across Jonelle as she joined in some of the discussions on the ifthehatfits group. Later I found out that she was the big boss of SWTC who make a lot of yarns in natural fibres that are non animal based



Soy Silk, Bamboo, Tofu, Maize and Hemp

All of these and many more combinations of yarns are interesting options for the vegan knitter but also a refreshing alternative to woolly fibres. Most of them can be found on the South West Trading Company website, go and have a look at their updated website which is now more knitter friendly and less wholesale orientated.

So far, I have knitted one swatch from the variegated shade of 100% Soy Silk,thanks to Viridian who sent me samples. It has a beautiful sheen and the spaces between dyes is similar to a sock yarn. Its also very stretchy and I can imagine it being suited to T-shirts and tops as it can be worn next to the skin. I haven't knitted a whole garment with it, so I don't know how it compares with the bamboo tape yarns from other spinners which have been reported to be heavy.

I am about to receive some samples from The House of Hemp
They grow agricultural hemp which can be made into tree free paper or spun to make yarns which are then spun in beautiful colours chosen by their in house designer. They also provide retreats and weaving workshops. Just looking at their website made me yearn for a retreat, nothing to do but knitting and relaxing without those household matters staring me in the face. I will report back on their sample once knitted and introduce them properly. For now, just have a look at their tempting palette.

If you would like to be introduced on skeinspotting you will need to send me 3 JPEGS of your work if you are a designer with links to your blogs/websites or yarn samples and links if you are a spinner. Please send

1. A JPEG of a classic work which you are identified with
2. A JPEG of a quirky or unusual work (for you) that will be of interest to readers
3. A JPEG of one of your latest pieces of work