well
today I have finished knitting:
a crown for ds
a strawberry hat for dd
and
a panta for me
La famille fillyjonk will set forth in our millernarious finery tommorrow, I think. Except dp, who I have somehow never knitted headgear for.
am feeling most industrious
but really its just cos I finally found my bodkins and am finally sewing a bunch of stuff up
that clanger pattern is identical to the one I linked to, although its been helpfully typed out. what I found really made a difference was to use sheeps wool stuffing, just cos it holds its shape better. or stick some strategic stitches in
MAKING YOUR OWN KNITTING NEEDLES
basically you get some doweling or skewers or whatever, cut to size with hachsaw, sharpen them (with a pencil sharpener), sand them down, rub with oil or paint (acrylics are fine) and then stick something on the end. I use mainly beads. A dab of wood glue is helpful here.
You can get doweling from all sorts of places, hobbycraft does nice beech in a range of widths (oh take along a knitters gauge if you particularly care). Beads-ebay. You can get a good range of hole size there but anyway, with a small hand drill you can always increase the size of the hole.
beech needles are around £5, I think. A length of beech doweling will probably be around £1.
Alternatively, even cheaper, to practice, get a pack of bamboo skewers, use gauge thingy to find 2 the same width (they vary, but only between around 2.5-3.5, doesn't really bother me tbh) if this especially matters to you, sand, oil, stick beads on the end.
Oh the bamboo skewers are especially great for dpns, I have found. They are def better than paying the £4.20 I last paid for (pony ffs, nothing fancy) 3 mm dpns.
Its very easy but quite addictive. And they look very nice in a glass jar (you can use for this the vinegar jar from the dying of wool...)
if that not clear theres a tutorial on crafster I think....