New Fair Isle Necklaces Sneak Peek

Here's a sneak peek at some new Fair Isle necklaces I've been working on! They are all hand knitted to my own designs in Shetland wool and the lightweight Fair Isle triangles hang at 11" on a 22" silver plated chain. I love making them as much as wearing them- they are very versatile dressed up or down. I'll be adding them to my Etsy shop very soon and I'll also be holding a competition to win one- I'll keep you posted!

New In My Etsy Shop- Hand Knitted Fair Isle Brooches!

I've just added some new hand knitted Fair Isle brooches to my Etsy shop! I love working with British materials so I have hand knitted each piece in beautiful British wool to a Fair Isle pattern of my own design.They are a lovely way to wear British wool and are the ideal Autumn/Winter accessory to brighten up your coat or cardigan, Take a look at these and my other Fair Isle brooches and necklaces in my Etsy shop here

Each brooch is aprox. 4cm x 4cm and very light weight to wear. They are backed with greyfelt and a round, gold toned brooch back

Fair Isle brooch hand knitted in pink, grey, blue, mustard and cream British wool

Fair Isle brooch hand knitted in pink, blues, mustard and cream British wool

Fair Isle brooch hand knitted in pink, blue, mustard and cream British wool

All my jewellery pieces arrive presented in a hand decorated box, making them ideal gifts

Wool Week Work In Progress- Fair Isle Brooches

Today sees the start of Wool Week in the UK so I thought this would be the ideal time to share some of my latest work... These are new square hand knitted Fair Isle brooches, made in beautiful British wool. I'm loving making these and transforming them from initial Fair Isle designs into wearable pieces and the Fenella 2ply wool I'm using to knit them is a joy to use and British grown and produced too. Over the next couple of weeks I'll be revealing more new jewellery work that I'll be adding to my Etsy shop soon. Watch this space!

What are you knitting at the moment and do you enjoy using British wool too?

I've just launched my Fair Isle Jewellery Collection!

I'm very happy to tell you that I've just added my new Fair Isle knitted jewellery collection to my Etsy Shop! I have used Shetland wool to hand knit each brooch and necklace as this was traditionally used for Fair Isle knitting and I love to use British made materials.

The pieces are very easy to wear- I've been wearing mine with my favourite Tweed jacket. Each piece comes packaged in a beautifully hand decorated gift box too, making them the ideal Christmas gift. I've really enjoyed making them so I'm so excited to finally be able to share them with you!

Fair Isle Felting Experiments!

I'm currently teaching myself Fair Isle knitting using Wendy Ramsdale British wool with an aim of creating a Fair Isle jewellery collection for the Winter. I'm trying out lots of different techniques at the moment to find out how the yarn behaves and here are some felting experiments I've been trying out, combing Fair Isle with other processes and then felting the samples in the washing machine. Here are some before and after photos!

For this piece I hand knitted a Fair Isle sample and then felted it in the washing machine at 60 degrees to see how the patterns came out when felted. I had tried washing it at 40 degrees but it only partly felted. It's made a lovely thick felt which would be great for making brooches and I'm pleased that you can still see the patterns- further experimentation required!

For this sample I knitted a plain piece in Ramsdale yarn and embroidered Fair Isle influenced patterns onto it using the same wool. Again I felted the piece in the washing machine at 60 degrees. I like the effect both before and after felting, especially as you can still see some of the embroidered detail, although I'd like the felt to be a little less fuzzy looking

I then knitted a piece combing Fair Isle and cable patterns, again putting it into the washing machine to felt at 60 degrees. Unfortunately the detail of the cables has been lost through the felting process, but it's all part of experimenting

 Take a look at more Fair Isle patterns I've knitted with Ramsdale here and read about how I tried Fair Isle in fabric! Now I'm off to experiment with combining cable, Fair Isle and embroidery in other ways, so I'll keep you posted!

A lovely gift

My friend Jean Muir makes beautiful ceramic pieces including these gorgeous rabbit Brooches. I was lucky enough to receive this lovely little rabbit from Jean for my birthday, I just love it! You can visit Jean's Gallery, The Jessica Muir Gallery, in Long Melford, Suffolk, to see more of her creations. Find out more here

In the meantime I'm wrapping up warm in the studio at Cuckoo Farm now winter is here- it's got quite cold! I'm keeping busy though and I'm currently making some hand knitted pieces (cosy!) for some events I've got coming up in early December. I'll keep you posted!