Autumn is just about to kick in as things turn chilly and the leaves turn brown. To remind ourselves of greener times how about a little scarf with summer leanings?
The Leaves Scarf by Slipped Stitch blogger Alice Bell is a lovely little knit and the perfect scarf for an autumn where the weather is likely to keep on changing. The pattern calls for a little bit of i-cord and some increasing, decreasing and slipping stitches. A doddle for most knitters and pretty simple for beginners once you get the hang of it.
The felted version of the scarf can be seen in the main image but I think it looks just as cool unfelted in all its stitched glory. Mother nature knits. Very cool.
Fancy stitching a tiny squid that will wrestle your finger into submission? Thought you might. Ladies and gentleman crafters let me introduce you to the tiny Finger-fighting Stitched Squid or Squidius Knittius.
This ten-tentacled terror was created for the Stitch a Squid workshop that Stitch London organised at the Natural History Museum. The event was a massive success and saw shoals of shiny-eyed squid wriggling off the needles to challenge their makers to a wrestle.
Anyone who missed the event but longs to stitch a squid themselves can find the stitched squid pattern on Ravelry and read all about it on Whodunnknit, the new home of Deadly Knitshade's (your humble Crafty Crafty writer) kooky but cute knits.
Stitch yourself a feisty finger-fighting squid. Go on.
It may seem ridiculous but if you're thinking about knitting for Christmas it might be wise to start now rather than become one of the weeping stitching heaps of panic I see at Stitch London meetings in the run up to the festive season.
To get you in the spirit of things how about a sweet scarf to kick things off?
The Candy Scarf is the stitched splendidness of The Fastener, a jack of all crafts from sneaky stitched yarnstorming to all manner of things crafty.
The simple but sweet pattern works by changing between two yarns leaving loops throughout the pattern. It looks more complicated than it is which is fabulous for impressing your giftee when you've had an easy knit.
Keep an eye on The Fastener for more yarn-based wonders and free craft tutorials aplenty.
It happens to us all. You are in dire need of a tune while squashed next to a sweaty besuited fellow bellowing into his mobile on a packed commuter train. You scrabble through bag or pockets for your headphones and when they appear one of the little earbuds is shamelessly naked. Showing off its smooth underbelly when it should be tucked neatly in a foam coat. Gah!
You can spend part of your morning trawling eBay for a replacement pair or try to find a minute to nip to the shops and buy a whole new set of headphones. Or you could make your own through the soothing powers of knitting.
Let the good folks over at Instructables tote you towards a place of brightly coated earbuds made by your own fair hands and a little light music, instead of listening to Gerald blather on to the team in West Bromich about profit margins.
Tiny knitted musical bliss.
Knitted furniture can sound all kinds of wrong as visions of baggy, badly sewn square-covered armchairs fill your head. That is until you see something simple, stitched and stylish and it completely changes your mind. This little knitting pattern does just that.
The Puff Daddy Stool from Pickles, a team of two Norwegian crafters, takes its inspiration from the rather more pricey Urchin Pouf from designer Christien Meindertsma.
It's a simpler, more affordable version that you can knit yourself holding three strands of yarn together for that chunky look.
The site also features a huge number of tutorial leading down paths of crochet, sewing and cupcakes.
Put your feet up on your knitted pouf and relax safe in the knowledge you are your own interior designer.
Illusion knitting is always impressive when it slowly dawns on the person looking at it that you have not only hand knit something, but you've managed to work a little magic too. The art of illusion knitting shows a different design when you look at the piece from a certain angle. A simple and effective knitting trick.
The way of the illusion knit can be a little hard to get your head around but help is at hand from Woolly Thoughts with their The World of Illusion Knitting. The site explains the maths and logic behind the patterns and also offers a bunch of free illusion knit patterns for you to try.
The Illusion Tea Cosies may look like mere stripy jackets for a cooling pot of hot stuff but when you lay them out flat they shout "Tea" unexpectedly.
A neat little trick to learn to put a bit of magic in your stitching.
What's that crawling from the sewers of New York intent on eating you, your friends and anyone else who wanders into its woolly path of tiny destruction! Aiiieeeee! It's a tiny knitted alligator and it's free! FREE I TELL YOU!
Hang on. Since when has a free knitting pattern been something to run away from? Run back! Get your needles into some gorgeous green and get stitch your very own Baby Alligator with a free pattern from the ever so lovely Queen of the Tiny Knit, Anna Hrachovec of Mochimochi Land.
Why is she sharing this reptilian lovely with us? To celebrate the US release of her new book Knitting Mochimochi. Woo hoo!
It's out in the UK in August. I snagged an advance copy from Anna at our Tiny Perching Pigeon Party and may I say that it is one of the most 'Squeeeeeeeeeeeeee!' books to hit the world of the knit in ages.
Mochimochi Land is taking over the knitting world. Hooray!
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