Yarn Along

Brrrr...winter is coming! It's getting pretty frosty here at the moment. There was even snow on the nearby hills yesterday (which happens only a few times a year, and it's not officially winter yet!)

Please excuse the street light and roof of the house across the road. That streetlight annoyed me so much when I was taking the photo, but there wasn't much I could do about it!

What have I been knitting and reading at the moment then? Well, I'm a big audiobook fan and I'm currently listening to 'The Persimmon Tree' by Bryce Courteney. I'm really enjoying it actually, though I shouldn't sound surprised as I do love his writing.

The knitting - how are my socks coming along? Not bad compared to last week, right? I finished the first sock not long after the blog entry and I tried it on. Oh my! I love it! I can see how people get addicted to this sock knitting thing!

It might not look like an awful lot of knitting either, but in the last week I've also released a new pattern and I've whipped up a new hat for my kindy-aged child. This is the Mimipita Earflap Hat, it's a free pattern and I really love the construction of it, though the sizing and translation have a few errors. But I do plan to whip up another and make a few changes

 

And I think that's enough for the week, right?

 

Thanks for leaving me a comment! Go on, leave me one! I do so love to read them? Have you read any Bryce Courteney books, or can you recommend a great hat pattern? 

 

Yarn Along

I'm almost finished my first sock, it's a little bit exciting. They're my first 'knitted by me, for me' socks and although I cast them on in January, I'm quite motivated to get them finished now. I've been working on quite a few patterns lately, and there's something about getting a WIP finished, which is someone else's well written pattern (Sarah Ronchetti's Basketweave Rib Socks) and is for me - which makes it quite motivating! Plus, it's definitely getting cooler now and these would look so good with my black shoes for winter! Must.knit.faster!

The book, well, it's just adorable. My oldest sister had a copy of this book when we were kids and I fondly remember reading it many many times. It popped into my head the other day when I was trying to think of books I read that I could read to my 6 year old daughter. With that, I looked up book depository and bought it for the tidy sum of $6.50NZD. It's called 'The Ordinary Princess' by M.M.Kaye and is the delicious tale of a princess who, when born is given the gifts of charm, wit and various other wonderful gifts from her Fairy Godmothers - until the last one, who isn't in the best mood at the time, gives her the gift of being Ordinary. And so, she grows up to into a mouse-coloured haired, freckled princess, who isn't content to simply throw a golden ball in the courtyard...but whose Father can't marry her off to any Prince either she's not your typical blonde and fair skinned princess. The story takes off when her Father hatches a plan which Amethyst (aka Amy) decides to rebel against.

I can't recommend it enough! And I'm well above it's target audience!

Hats For Ethan

Come join us with our big 'Hats for Ethan' fundraiser!

Ethan is a lovely little 6 year old, who is battling leukaemia. His family have said that the money this raises they'll put towards buying a spare single bed, so that they can have a quarantine type room if needed this winter, with bugs and flu germs around. That's not too much to wish for surely, is it?

'Hats For Ethan' is a wonderful showcase which kicks off tomorrow, Friday the 10th at 7:30pm NZ time. The link is HERE. If you join the group, click on the showcase album, or click HERE, and you'll see all the amazing items up for grabs! Custom made hat auctions, starting at $10! Yarn kits of luxury yarns starting at $15! Beautiful 'buy now' items! Seriously, the range is just lovely - there cold be some amazing bargains to be had, but the aim is to raise as much money as possible for this precious little guy, so the more, the better! Auctions close on Sunday, what a lovely Mother's Day gift it could be to win an item - both for you, your hat recipient and Ethan and his family.

Here's my contribution....I know, I know! It's not a hat....but it's the thought that counts - right?! Please come bid on it! 

Final Reminder!

I hate things that come in the mail that say 'Final Notice' or 'Final Reminder' - they're often things that will hurt my bank account!

But this will be my final reminder - for my knitting course in Hanmer from the 17-19th of May as the sign ups close this week!

So, it's now or never (well, till next time anyway!)

Course - Beginner Knitting – seamlessly and speedily. In this course Julia will introduce the basics of knitting in the round including:

• How to use circular needles
• How to read a pattern
• Knitting basics – knit, purl, increasing, casting on and off
• How to fix mistakes
• How to check gauge
• Useful links and resources
• How to wind yarn into a ball from a skein
• Julia will also give a demonstration of how to dye yarn yourself using things you have at home
• Students will be working through a pattern for a child’s garment written by Julia with the aim of completing it over the weekend.

But wait, there's more! I have a wonderful friend who happens to live in Christchurch and is a very talented knitter and yarn dyer - so Rachel Booker, of Featherbrush Yarns, will be joining me for the weekend! I'm so excited about that!

Don't worry that you'll be bored if you know the basics, I have plenty of tricks up my sleeve to teach how to knit speedily. I'll also be teaching Continental knitting (which I have somehow omitted in my blurbs!), which is a different way of knitting for most people.

Sign up information is HERE. The cost for the course is $110.

Housekeeping

It's time I did a little housekeeping with my patterns. All of them need a few changes to be made to the copyright statement to reflect my decision to go License Free, so it's actually a really good time to give them all a little tidy up. If you know of any errors in any of the patterns, could you please contact me and I'll look into that pattern and hopefully delete any more gremlins that are floating around.

Thanks!

And isn't this photo cute! I actually took it last year when Red Riding Hood Yarn ran a little Olympics inspired competition of her own. The green garment my David is wearing is a short sleeved Greyson - I think he looks super cute! It was knitted in RRHY too, one I think I even came up with the name for - 'Green with Envy'

All patterns now License Free!

That's right! As of this last week, I've announced that all* my patterns are now license free.



That is, when you purchase the pattern you are also purchasing the rights to knit it to sell. Having been someone who has custom knitted, it's hard to make money selling beautiful handknits, when you factor in your time and materials!

I shared this on my Facebook group and was overwhelmed by people's positive responses - it's very heart warming to see that others may wish to knit my patterns to sell. In fact, the post was shared 50 times and 'seen' by over 5000. That was exciting to watch, considering on average my FB posts get seen by an audience of about 400!

I'm slowly going to start working my way through my patterns and updating their copyright information to this:

                                                                                                                        

Copyright and License Free Information

This pattern is copyright and is the express property of the author Julia Stanfield.

This pattern is for personal use. Please do not sell or publish.

However, you may use this pattern for small scale commercial purposes, making items personally. Please credit any items you knit for sale back to this pattern and Julia Stanfield as the designer.

Thank you for choosing to purchase and knit my patterns, I hope you’ll put your finished details and photos on Ravelry! I love seeing them.

Happy Knitting!
 

xx

 

Julia

                                                                                                                         

 

You'll find all my patterns HERE

 

*license free applies to all patterns not written exclusively for yarn clubs or publications

5 Random Things About Me

Sarah from Sezza Knits tagged me in a '5 Random Things About Me' post the other day and I thought, hey, why not. Let's see if I can come up with 5 random things!

1) I'm left-handed. I used to wonder if it was because when I was 18 months old I lost the tip of my little finger on my right hand in the hinge of a door and had my hand bandaged up for a while. But I think I was always meant to be a leftie. I was the only leftie in my family and I think I've always liked that I am a little different in a completely socially acceptable way!

2) I LOVE music. Love love love it. I feel happiest when the radio is playing and I am one of those annoying people that whistle everywhere, without realising I am doing it. I often hear myself whistling away at the supermarket to the music that plays through the speakers there and think that it must be really annoying. Then I'll refrain for a bit, until the next song comes on and most likely I'll just join in again without thinking. At home I think I sing (and dance, it's hilarious to watch I'm sure) along, whereas in public places that's probably a bit odd to walk up and down the aisles signing at the top of your lungs to some song on the radio. My FAVOURITE purchase last year was getting a radio/cd player finally put in the car. How I lived so long without music in the car I don't know, but now it's there I couldn't be without it.

3) I'm not a worrier. I don't lose sleep thinking about things. If I hear something that upsets me or I don't like, I generally try and do something about it. If I can't do anything about it, I'll be deeply saddened or frustrated, but not worried.

4) I think I have a little bit of an obsessive compulsive personality. I can never stop at just one. It's all or nothing. So I can either open that packet of biscuits and expect to have inhaled them all within an hour, or leave it there for a week. I can never buy one skein of yarn or have just one book from a series of books (I LOVE books)

5) I'm the middle child of 5, 4 girls and then one boy. I do find birth order theories and studies quite interesting. I like to think I can get on with pretty much anyone, though I'm not sure if that's to do with birth order or just who I am. And would you believe it, but although I grew up in Hastings, me and all my sisters have all made our homes in Wellington. It's brilliant. In fact it needs a blog post all of it's own one day...that's if anyone would find reading it remotely interesting!

I love this photo, I think we all look pretty good in it...oh how I wish I still looked remotely like this (that's me in the wedding dress...7 1/2 years and 3 kids ago)

 

And here's the 5 of us, lined up in birth order like my Dad's siblings do. I'm sure people feel sorry for my brother for being the only boy with 4 big sisters, but I think he loves it, really.

 

Ok - and now to choose a few people to blog too...hmmmm - who might actually do it and whose blogs do I love to read

Alison - Kiwi Crafty Chemist

Kate - Chevgirl

Justine - JustJussi

Viv - Highway Cottage

 

 

 

 

Winter is coming...

I love this.

I just saw this on a friend's Facebook page and I thought, it's so true.

In my own knitting circles, people are always keen to a knit night and a catch up - of course a bit of knitting takes place along with yarn sharing, pattern showing and general gossiping. But as the weather gets cooler, the leaves start to turn golden brown and the mornings start to feel chilly - the motivation also ramps up.

Me, I've been relatively motivated lately. I have two patterns to have to Hannah of Red Riding Hood Yarns for her yarn club in the next while (ha ha, I'm not going to say exactly when, I don't want to give away exactly which month I'm designing for!) but today I wrote up the beginning of another pattern, named it (yessss! Love that part) and I'm hoping to get this one up and ready for testing in the next couple of weeks. It's getting cooler, it's time to start knitting! And seriously knitting - not just procrastinating about getting my knitting out.

Hoping you find your knitting mojo too if it's been enjoying the summer (I wanted to type 'hibernating', but it seemed so wrong to use for waning motivation over the warmer months!)

xx

J

Ps - I've just joined Twitter too! You can find me there as 'justonewip'. I don't really know what I'm doing or saying there, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it soon! I do so love all the knitting updates others post.

Primrose - Perfect for both hemispheres right now!

Introducing Primrose! Sadly, a beautiful pattern - which never made it to the blog as it was released amongst a haze of house selling/buying 'stuff' (Open homing and the like).

But I'm so proud of Primrose, and love the look of the pattern so much that it definitely deserves it's own blog post still! I was just thinking the other day, that at this time of the year, Primrose knitted in wool, is perfectly suited to both hemispheres. The days growing cooler in the autumn of the Southern and the still cool but growing warmer days of the Northern.

From Ravelry:
Primrose - The Little Sister Pattern To Katniss.
Pretty. Feminine. Delicate.

Primrose is a stylishly simple and seamless pattern, featuring sweet lace panels in the raglans, waist and hem.
Great for layering with leggings or jeans in winter as a tunic, or knit in cotton for a pretty summer dress.

Primrose is written in 11 sizes (NB - 10 years) and looks just as gorgeous on older children as it does on babies. It comes with three easy to follow options within the pattern for the empire waist band - lace, lace eyelet (looks lovely with a ribbon threaded through) and a no lace option.

I had wonderful testers of the pattern - just look at some of these photos! One thing I was pleased to learn during the testing, was that Primrose seems to suit older girls, just as well as younger. A true knit more than once type pattern.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It can be purchased via this link to Ravelry for $6USD, or you can click this link to buy now directly. href

="http://www.ravelry.com/purchase/julia-stanfield-designs/128501"><img src="http://www.ravelry.com/images/shopping/buy-now.gif" border="0"/>

 

Or you can just leave me lots of lovely comments, that's fine too!

 

xx

 

J

 

 

 

 

 

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!

It's so hilarious when children lose their teeth! Penny's lost her two top front teeth in the last week and it's just so funny looking at her!

She's gone from this:

Photo by Rachael Brown Photography, I actually can't find a photo on my computer from most of last year, eeek! Where have they gone!

To this (30th of January):

To this (23rd March):

And then on Easter Sunday (31st March) - she looked like this (she reminds me of a vampire, just a little!)

 

It is just a little bit hilarious isn't it!