Knit & Crochet Project Planner - a review and a giveaway

I received a copy of the Knit & Crochet Project Planner from Search Press and I am really excited about it! My friends would probably tell you that I am a very organised person, and I would say that is pretty much true. Except, that is, to when it comes to my knitting and crochet! I have eleventy billion projects on the go, project bags stuffed inside bigger bags and in boxes, and LOTS and LOTS of notebooks and pieces of paper. I sometimes have to spend ages trying to work out where I am in a pattern, and what exactly did I mean by those scribbled notes when I was trying out ideas for a new design. I am definitely not a monogamous knitter, preferring to dip in and out of projects at a whim, despite having proved to myself that I am so much more productive if I stick to one project at a time. The cover boldly claims: 'Everything you need to dream, plan and organize 12 projects!' I couldn't wait to delve into it!

The planner is divided into five sections: My Year, Project Planning, Tracking Logs, My Contacts and Reference. For me, the most useful sections are My Year, which allows you to list events and set tasks for each month, Project Planning which is absolutely brilliant and packed with plenty of space to plan, design if you wish, swatch and just generally keep all your project notes in one place, and the Reference section which has helpful reminders, stitch and chart abbreviations, needle sizes and everything you might possibly need to look up whilst working on a project. Each project is colour-coded, so it's easy to find a particular project from the page edges. I cannot wait to start using it to plan my projects for 2021.

It would make a brilliant present for any knitter or crocheter that you know, or why not gift it to yourself to set yourself up for an organised year of crafty goodness. 

Knit & Crochet Project Planner by Sophie Scardaci is published by C&T Publishing and is available from Search Press now.

ISBN: 978-1-64403-099-8

RRP: £16.99

The lovely people at Search Press have very kindly offered me a copy to give away on my blog. If you'd like to be in with a chance of winning, please leave me a comment, telling me what is going to be the first project on your needles or hook in 2021. I will leave the giveaway open until midnight (GMT) on Monday 7th December and I'll pick a winner by random number generator. Please make sure that I have a way to contact you (leave an Instagram or Ravelry ID or some other way that I can recognise who you are!) I will then get in touch with you and pass your address onto Search Press so that they can send you your planner. I'm really sorry, but this giveaway is for folk living in the UK only. If I don't hear from the winner within a week, then I'll randomly select another winner. Good luck one and all! xxx

 

Taking a closer look at the Fibre 4 Fibres Twelve Days of Christmas Boxes

This Sunday (November 29th) and the following Sunday (December 6th), there is a chance to win one of twelve 'Twelve Days of Christmas' boxes, as shown in my previous post here. I wanted you to understand that the contents of each box will be slightly different and explain how. 

*** Project Bag ***

Ann from Busy Pottering has made bags using three different fabrics - two vintage Laura Ashley prints and a Scandi-style print. There will be one of these in the box

*** Yarn skein ***

I have raided my stash and pulled out twelve different skeins of indie-dyed yarn. They come from a variety of dyers but are all lovely and colourful.

*** 10g mini skeins ***

I have wound 144 10g minis of indie-dyed yarn. There is no commercial yarn such as Opal and Regia included. You will receive a selection of balls, all individually packaged and numbered, ready to open!

*** Stitch Markers ***

Sarah from Fripperies & Bibelots created a special limited edition of Ring0's called 'Josiekitten's Jingles'. There are two each of the large, regular and small stitchmarkers and a jingle bell progress keeper. They come in a little tin and are super-cute. I wish I could keep a set for me!

*** Crafter's Balm and yet more yarn! ***

Laura from Crafter's Balm and Bumbling Yarns has donated not only a tin of her wonderful hand balm but she also dyed up two 20g skeins of yarn in a festive red and green and a cool icy blue.

*** Other treats ***

Katriona from Brocha Melts has donated some soy wax scented melts in an assortment of festive scents, Julie from Tilly Flop has donated a sachet of Soak for each box and Kate from Lana Bou has donated a goody bag containing a postcard, badge and stitch marker.

*** Some edible treats ***

Finally, there are hot chocolate shots from Gnaw Chocolate (in a variety of flavours), Vive bars from Eat Vive (again in a variety of flavours), some Yorkshire Tea teabags and a bar of Lindor chocolate. Yum yum yum!

I hope that you agree with me that these boxes are a really treat and that you'll enter the raffle to win. I'll repost the information on how to enter from my previous blog post for you.

I'm sure that you know the score by now, but I'll tell you how to enter anyway! You have a chance to win one of SIX Twelve Days of Christmas boxes for a minimum donation of £2! (There will be another SIX boxes available to win next weekend too.) Are you tempted to try your luck? Here's everything you need to know. This giveaway will run this coming Sunday 29th November, closing at 23:55. To enter, go to my JustGiving page here and buy your virtual raffle tickets by donating £2 or more. £2 gets you 2 tickets, £3 gets you 3 tickets, £5 gets you 5 tickets and so on. The more you donate, the greater your chance of winning. You will need to leave your Instagram or Ravelry name, or tick the box to share your details with me when you make your donation, so that I can contact you if you are the winner. This is really important as I have no way of knowing who you are otherwise. Each week, I still get donations where no name or email is left, so if that person's number comes up in the random number generator, I have no idea who it is! All your donations go the Myositis UK to help fund research into this incurable muscle disease, so thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your support. Every single donation is important. Let's see how much we can raise this weekend! Last week was truly amazing as we passed £8,500 so £9000 is the next big milestone. I have to pinch myself sometimes that you've helped me to raise so much money. Thank you! xxx

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I am quite giddy with excitement to share this week's prizes in my Fibre 4 Fibres raffle. They have been planned for quite a long time now and finally this week, the last element of the prize arrived in the post (having taken a scenic route to get here!) and everything is good to go! I had the idea of creating a Twelve Days of Christmas  box as a little treat for someone. Lots of the indie dyers are doing them these days, but the amount of work that goes into them means that they can be pretty pricey and hard to justify spending that amount of money on yourself. My idea grew and it has become not just ONE 'Twelve Days of Christmas' box, but TWELVE! I've had some amazing donations from some incredibly kind and generous people, so thank you very much. The boxes are all slightly different (I'll explain how in a separate blog post), but let me show you the kind of thing you could win if you choose to buy a virtual raffle ticket or two (or three or five or ten! There's no limit!) 

The prize includes a festive project bag in one of three fabrics which have been made and donated by my friend Ann who is BusyPottering over on Instagram. She rummaged through her fabric stash and picked out a couple of vintage Laura Ashley prints and a Scandi-style print. You will also receive a skein of indie-dyed yarn from my stash. There are lots of different dyers there but all are colourful! If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen that I have been busy winding lots of little balls of yarn - 144 of them to be precise! They all come from yarn leftover from my own projects and are all from indie-dyers (no commercial sock yarn like Opal or Regia) - think Crafthouse Magic, Ducky Darlings, Lay Family Yarn, Norah George Yarn, The Yarn Tart, Truly Hooked, Hedgerow Yarns, Burrow and Soar, Pixie Yarns ... the list of wonderful indie dyers is endless! Each one weighs approximately 10g so  plenty there for a nice scrappy project. They have been wraapped individually and numbered so there's one to open on each of the twelve days of Christmas. Sarah from Fripperies & Bibelots has created a very special limited edition tin of ring0s stitchmarkers called 'Josiekitten's Jingles' and they are fabulous! Laura from Crafter's Balm and Bumbling Yarns has donated a tin of her wonderful crafter's balm and has also dyed two special mini skeins for each box. Julie from Tilly Flop has donated a sachet of Soak for each winner too. These come in various scents. There is also a little bag of treats from Lana Bou containing a postcard, badge and stitchmarker. Katriona, from Brocha Melts, has donated some festive hand poured soy wax melts in a variety of festive scents. To complete the box, there are some edible treats. Gnaw Chocolate (a local business) has donated a hot chocolate shot for each box (I bought some to try out in the name of customer research and they are rather yummy!), Eat Vive donated a box of vegan protein bars (they are my favourite snack bar and let's just say that I'm a good customer of theirs!) so there's one in each box, my favourite brand of tea, Yorkshire Tea, donated some tea bags so you can enjoy a cuppa while you're crafting away, and I've added in a bar of Lindor chocolate just because it wouldn't be Christmas without some chocolate, would it?! Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has made these boxes happen!

I'm sure that you know the score by now, but I'll tell you how to enter anyway! You have a chance to win one of SIX Twelve Days of Christmas boxes for a minimum donation of £2! (There will be another SIX boxes available to win next weekend too.) Are you tempted to try your luck? Here's everything you need to know. This giveaway will run this coming Sunday 29th November, closing at 23:55. To enter, go to my JustGiving page here and buy your virtual raffle tickets by donating £2 or more. £2 gets you 2 tickets, £3 gets you 3 tickets, £5 gets you 5 tickets and so on. The more you donate, the greater your chance of winning. You will need to leave your Instagram or Ravelry name, or tick the box to share your details with me when you make your donation, so that I can contact you if you are the winner. This is really important as I have no way of knowing who you are otherwise. Each week, I still get donations where no name or email is left, so if that person's number comes up in the random number generator, I have no idea who it is! All your donations go the Myositis UK to help fund research into this incurable muscle disease, so thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your support. Every single donation is important. Let's see how much we can raise this weekend! Last week was truly amazing as we passed £8,500 so £9000 is the next big milestone. I have to pinch myself sometimes that you've helped me to raise so much money. Thank you! xxx

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I am beyond excited to share this week's prizes with you. The prizes are definitely starting to get a bit festive and I have TWO amazing prizes to tell you about.

The first of this week's prizes includes a stunning DK Advent calendar from Beehive Yarns which has been donated by my friend Anji. The theme of this year's Advent is 'Festive Fairytales' and you can see some of the images that Beth has used as inspiration for her dyeing. The image with all the yarn shows last year's Advent (which of course had a different theme, so it's not a spoiler for this year's one!) and whoever wins it will be in for a real treat. To go with this, I've added a sweet little snowman notions case from ThreeBagsFull and a snowman stitch marker from Fripperies & Bibelots. Thank you so, so much Anji for your generous donation. 

The second of Sunday's prizes is equally festive! There's a Pony Advent calendar which is full of notions for knitters and crocheters, generouslyy donated by Groves Ltd. My lovely friend Gilly from Gilly Makes has sewn a sweet festive project bag especially for this prize. Search Press have donated a book of Christmas Crafts which is bursting with fun projects to make. There's a very Christmassy skein of yarn from Pixie Yarn and three Christmas stitch markers from Fripperies & Bibelots. Thank you everyone for your donations. 

I hope that you'll agree that these are two fabulous prizes up for grabs this weekend and they are waiting to be won by some very lucky people. You have a chance to win all these gorgeous prizes for a minimum donation of £2! All donations will be entered for both prizes and I will pick two winners using the random number generator from the list of all donations. (Just keep in mind that if you are entering from outside the UK, it's highly unlikely that the prize will arrive by December 1st, so you'll have to play catch up if you're a winner!) Are you tempted to try your luck? Here's everything you need to know. This giveaway will run this coming Sunday 22nd November, closing at 23:55. To enter, go to my JustGiving page here and buy your virtual raffle tickets by donating £2 or more. £2 gets you 2 tickets, £3 gets you 3 tickets, £5 gets you 5 tickets and so on. The more you donate, the greater your chance of winning. You will need to leave your Instagram or Ravelry name, or tick the box to share your details with me when you make your donation, so that I can contact you if you are the winner. This is really important as I have no way of knowing who you are otherwise. Each week, I still get donations where no name or email is left, so if that person's number comes up in the random number generator, I have no idea who it is! All your donations go the Myositis UK to help fund research into this incurable muscle disease, so thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your support. Every single donation is important. Let's see how much we can raise this weekend! We are really close to raising £8000 now so it would be fabulous to see a big injection of cash this week. There must be well over £200 of prizes for two lucky people! Thank you for supporting my fundraising! xxx

A severe case of sockitis!

I need help! I think I have a bad case of sockitis! I was going through my WIPs, trying to prioritise, and found six sock projects, as shown above. And no, I haven't miscounted, because after finding those six, I cast on a seventh. See, I told you it was bad! Let me show you the symptoms...

Symptom 1 - Halloween socks

Now these were socks I started in October using the Spooky Speckle sock set from Stripey Cat Yarns. I decided after much procrastination that I would knit the entire skein of yarn to make one mahoosive sock tube and then split it into four to make two pairs of socks - one for me and the other for my friend Julia. 

Symptom 2 - It's Seagull o'clock socks

These were the pair that I cast on yesterday evening! The main yarn is from Burrow & Soar and I'd used the exact same skein as a prize in my Fibre 4 Fibre giveaways. Jane, who was the winner, told me that she'd posted a finished photo on Ravelry of the socks she'd knitted and they were so beautiful that I had to cast on a pair of me. (You can see Jane's socks here - warning, it's a link to Ravelry.) Jane very kindly sent me the leftover yarn from the miniskeins that she'd used for the contrast cuff, heel and toe, so we will be sock twins! The pattern is my own design and you can buy it here from Ravelry if you're interested. 

Symptom 3 - Head over Heels Splash! socks

This is a pair of socks that I'm knitting for my rheumatology consultant. I gave her a pair last Christmas and she mentioned to me that she had been wearing them, so I thought I'd knit her another pair. I've finished the first sock and am not far off the heel flap on the second. The yarn is from the Head over Heels All Stars range; it's being discontinued but you can still find it at the Wool Warehouse. Your local yarn shop may well stock it too.

Symptom 4 - Opal pink stripy socks

These socks have been on my needles for some time. I always like to have a plain vanilla pair or two on the go, they are perfect for some mindless knitting. I got the yarn from Suffolk Socks. Julie always has a great selection of Opal yarn. I'm decreasing the gusset on the first sock, so still a way to go before these will be on my feet! 

Symptoms 5-7

These are all secret socks so I can't show you them right now! One is for a knitting magazine, another is using a new yarn from Stylecraft and the third is a new design I'm working on using miniskeins that I'd hoped to be able to release in time for Advent, but will now be for Advent 2021!

So there you have it - a severe case of sockitis. I think it might be contagious! I'm not sure if there's a cure, but if you have any ideas, please do let me know! xxx

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It's Friday again! I have absolutely no idea where the days go, but it's time to share another prize with you. This week's prize gives you the opportunity to try out some different fibres. The prize includes a gorgeous superwash merino, yak and nylon Litmus Cowl kit from Ducky Darlings which was donated by my friend Cyndy on Instagram. The kit contains all the yarn, a copy of the pattern and a pair of Hiya Hiya circular needles for you to knit with. A perfect cosy accessory for chilly mornings. Milli from Tribe Yarns has donated a wonderfully soft and fluffy skein of 100% llama yarn and a funky leather wrist ruler. My dear friend Michele from ThreeBagsFull has donated a sweet little sheep notions case and there is a set of pretty stitch markers from Paula who has her Etsy shop Eva Faith. To complete this week's prize there is a skein of 100% alpaca yarn from Artesano. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated a prize. It's a super collection of treats worth over £100 and somebody has to win it! It could be you!

 

I'm sure that you know the score by now, but I'll tell you how to enter anyway! You have a chance to win all these gorgeous prizes for a minimum donation of £2! Are you tempted to try your luck? Here's everything you need to know. This giveaway will run this coming Sunday 15th November, closing at 23:55. To enter, go to my JustGiving page here and buy your virtual raffle tickets by donating £2 or more. £2 gets you 2 tickets, £3 gets you 3 tickets, £5 gets you 5 tickets and so on. The more you donate, the greater your chance of winning. You will need to leave your Instagram or Ravelry name, or tick the box to share your details with me when you make your donation, so that I can contact you if you are the winner. This is really important as I have no way of knowing who you are otherwise. Each week, I still get donations where no name or email is left, so if that person's number comes up in the random number generator, I have no idea who it is! All your donations go the Myositis UK to help fund research into this incurable muscle disease, so thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your support. Every single donation is important. Let's see how much we can raise this weekend! Last week, we passed the £7600 total, so £8000 is the next big milestone. I have to pinch myself sometimes that you've helped me to raise so much money. Thank you! xxx

Aria blanket ta dah!

I am a huge fan of Lucy from Attic24's blankets. They are not complicated to make but are always a thoroughly enjoyable experience from start to end. I've made a few now, and I think that the Aria blanket must be vying for top spot in my favourites. The colours are just so happy and uplifting and let's face it, we could all do with that at the moment. The kits to make this are available from the Wool Warehouse and they have done a brilliant job throughout lockdown to supply knitters and crocheters not just in the UK but also around the world this year. You could also try your local yarn shop to support them through these challenging times. UK Hand Knitting has a map to help you locate a yarn shop near to you. 

I crocheted this blanket pretty fast for me, considering that I've had a number of other projects on the go too. I haven't managed to block it yet, but as we had some gloriously crisp and sunny mornings a few days ago, I couldn't resist taking it outside for its moment of glory!

Flo has been a watchful companion throughout its making, naturally!

A 'crochet and Flo' sandwich!

I had a production line going for the last three rows! It worked really well.

I think Flo was telling me to hurry up with her blanket!

I was very good at sewing in my ends. I have learnt from my mistakes in the past!

This was right at the start when I'd just joined the first two squares. Happy smiles!

Haven't you finished yet? 

If you deal with the ends as you go along, you will definitely thank yourself!

Flo was my constant crochet companion!

I printed a copy of the chart so I could highlight each colour as I went along. 

Border progress has slowed due to chin rubs!

I wanted to see how it looked before I started the border. It's soooooo beautiful!

A final ta dah - can you spot Flo? I think she's saying it's hers!

Lucy always has a CAL in January and February and the theme for the next one is 'Meadow'. I can't wait to see the colours she has chosen and what the pattern is. It will be the perfect way to brighten those dull winter days! Will you be joining in too? xxx