We still can’t get enough of those delightful striped shawls. There’s still Color Affections underway, and we can now report a surge in Pauline Popiolek’s Cameo.

It’s a lovely knit – mostly garter stitch, with a lovely garter lace border and a little flirtatious picot edge. We’ve got two in the shop at the moment, the first in Hedgehog Fibres Sock, and it reminds us of marshmallows:

The other, made with Fyberspates Scrumptious 4ply, is a shade more sober – a well-made caffe latte, perhaps.

And we’re fairly certain that there’ll more like these on the way, so we’ll keep you posted. We’d recommend that you keep an eye on the FO Parade thread in our Ravelry group (and don’t forget to post your own finished objects there – there’s prizes!).

This little charmer is Cute as One Button, one of This Is Knit’s most popular patterns. It’s easy to see why – it’s a simple little garment which comes in two sizes and which knits up really fast.

It’s designed for Aran weight or worsted weight yarn, and this one is made from Malabrigo Rios – soft as a cloud and machine-washable, and just look at the bright happy colours it comes in! Both sizes take just one skein, and when you buy the yarn, the pattern’s free.

What’s more, there’s no seams at all in this wee cardigan, because it’s knitted from the top down. So it’s the simplest thing ever to customise to fit that dotey wee recipient. It’s a good thing that there are always babies to knit for, because it’s really, really hard to make just one Cute as One Button!

It’s not possible, we’ve found, to look at this wee cardigan without smiling. The happy colours, the smart Argyle pattern on the fronts, the gently gathered shoulders – ah, just the charm of it.

It’s the Pia cardigan, from MillaMia’s Little Rascals pattern book, and it’s made in their Naturally Soft Merino. Unlike a lot of children’s patterns, MillaMia’s designs come in a wide range of sizes and ages (this cardigan has instructions from 1 year to 5 years), so they’re versatile as well as lovely.

The yarn’s machine washable for convenience and comes in a wide range of colours. It’s perfect for children’s clothes, and that’s what most of MillaMia’s pattern books concentrate on. Recently, though, they’ve branched out into grown-up garments, so the rest of us don’t need to feel left out – we’ll talk about them soon too.

One last thing about our Pia: if you find that you can’t decide which colour to use for the buttons, use all of them! As you can see, it never fails. And it makes people smile.

If you’re looking for a perfect marriage of yarn and pattern, then may we commend this beauty? It’s Sivia Harding’s Heart to Heart Beaded Scarf knitted in Debbie Bliss Luxury Silk DK, and it’s lovely.

First, the pattern. It’s a very straightforward crescent-shaped shawlish scarf, knitted from one end to the other, with a clever and straightforward lace panel on one side, a garter stitch panel on the other, and the most satisfying selvedge edge we’ve seen in a long time. The lace is lightly beaded (we used a beading technique we hadn’t tried before, with complete success, which we’ll blog very, very soon).

Now, the yarn. It’s simply delicious. It’s like knitting with velvet. It’s got a beautiful sheen, and the gentle ply makes it comfortable to work and fast through the hand. The colours are a joy, and at 100m per ball, the yardage is very good. We can’t wait to work with it again, and we’re thinking of special occasion garments. Lisa’s Winterberry Shrug would seem obvious (but if you’ve got any other ideas, please tell us in the comments). The whole Heart to Heart took just under four balls of the silk (that’s 195g out of 200g) on 4.5mm needles, so it was fast to work too.

A lovely pattern in a beautiful yarn. with a touch of beading? Yes. That’ll do.

It’s St Patrick’s Day here in Dublin, and we’d like to wish you a very happy day, wherever you are.

And wherever you are, we hope you get to sit down and have a nice quiet cup of tea and a bit of yarncraft. We’re so fond of tea round here that we make clothes for it – there’s proof in the picture above of the very first outing for our new Celtic Cosy, made from just two balls of Studio Donegal Aran, and now on sale as a kit.

And here’s a shoutout to our lovely neighbours at the Pepper Pot, where we took that picture. They’re open today and tomorrow even when we’re shut, and there’s no nicer place for a big pot of tea (and there’s special Guinness and chocolate cake this weekend).

It’s always particularly satisfying when a pattern comes together with a yarn in an unexpected way. We were so impressed with this project that we couldn’t wait to show you.

It’s Wrenna, one of the eighteen stylish patterns from French Girl Knits by Kristeen Griffin-Grimes. It’s designed for super bulky yarn, so four skeins of Debbie Bliss Paloma stepped up to the mark beautifully.

What’s more, this is one of the fastest projects ever! It took literally a couple of hours, and the result will see you through an entire season in the best Parisian style.

In the original pattern, the front was closed with a leather lace, but we’ve found an alternative we like even better: This Is Knit’s exclusive Nova steel shawl pin, custom-designed by Eimear Earley. What a lovely Mother’s Day present, too!

It’s with some pride that we present this lovely cardigan. It’s the first ever garment made by Jen, its delighted owner, and it’s an overwhelming success.

The pattern is Golden Wheat, and it’s yet another Veera Välimäki pattern. If her name seems familiar, it’s because we can’t stop making her designs: Folded, which we blogged here, is another of her cardigans, and she’s also the designer of the marvellous Color Affection.

If you’re looking for a hassle-free, seamless cardigan, then we can’t recommend this one enough. It’s made from the top down, so you can try it on as you go to ensure a good fit, and it’s surprisingly light on yarn: this one took just over three skeins of Malabrigo Rios in Teal Feather.

The pretty buttons came from our neighbours at A Rubanesque. Even though it was a first garment, Jen did a little customisation: she left the pocket out and made the waist section shorter (it fitted her better that way). She made the sleeves a little shorter and a little wider than the original, and the result is a cardigan tailored to her exact specifications.

Feeling inspired by Jen’s success? If you fancy a go at top-down construction (easy as pie and seam-free!), then there’s a couple of spaces in the Winterberry Shrug class this Saturday. We’ve also got some room in our introduction to lace knitting class on the same day, where the class project is the Party Lace Scarf. Both classes can be booked online at this link, or just give us a call to reserve a place.

Well, Christmas is upon us: the shopping’s done, the wrapping’s almost done and the rest will be done tomorrow. That picture’s a fair idea of what we’ll be up to until the New Year begins. Unsurprisingly yarn, festive food and armchairs will feature prominently.

So we had a quick survey of what we’re relaxing with, patternwise. Lisa’s going for Golden Wheat with Malabrigo Rios in Jupiter – you might remember that she did Folded by the same designer earlier this year and loved it (we blogged about it here).

Jacqui’s making the dotiest little toddler’s baseball jacket from Debbie Bliss’s Baby Cashmerino Book Four. It’s the top right picture here (awwww….). There’ll probably be a shawl or two as well – watch this space!

Nadia’s making an In Leaf cardigan, also in Malabrigo Rios. There’s at least one Pax shawl planned as well, and the Portulaca cardigan whose sleeve you can see above will be finished (oh yes it will!). Portulaca’s a lovely example of the magic that Carol Feller works with cables, so we can’t wait for her workshop on charts and cables in February.

That’s a lot of crochet and knitting, so we’d better buckle down. A mince pie and a big pot of tea will help as well, of course. But before we go, season’s greetings to every one of you – we hope it’s all you could wish for and more.

The shop’s been echoing in the last few days to one sound: “Awww!”. The cause, you won’t be surprised to learn, has been this baby jacket, made recently by Lisa.

It’s a present for a little baby called T, whose mother is herself a fantastic knitter (we’ve marvelled at her projects on these pages before). It’s a free pattern on Ravelry called Snug, and it knits up fast in plump squishy yarn (Debbie Bliss Rialto Chunky is perfect, and comes in lots of happy colours).

It’s a terrific little knit – it’s entirely made in soothing garter stitch, but it’s kept interesting by an unusual sideways construction. It’s almost entirely seamless, with that cosy hood grafted to avoid an uncomfortable seam against a little head. So if you’re looking for something dotey that’s also fun to knit, then you couldn’t do better than Snug.

So welcome, baby T – the world is a better place now you’re here!

A final note to say that we’re open on December 22rd with our usual Saturday opening hours (10.30am – 5.30pm), and on Sunday 23rd from 1.00pm to 6.00pm. We’ll reopen at noon Wednesday 2nd January, ready for a whole new year.

We’ve been hit by a sudden dusting of snowflakes here! They’re all over the place, and they’re the simplest and most festive things.

It’s all because of this excellent book, which we’ve just got back into stock in time for Christmas. It’s called 100 Snowflakes to Crochet, by Caitlin Sainio, and it’s just that: a hundred pretty, easy to crochet and versatile patterns for six-pointed charm.

The patterns are both charted and written, and they use the UK terminology that most Irish crocheters are familiar with (though if the UK/US distinction needs any clarification, we talked about it last year in this post).

The book includes many ideas for using your snowflakes – in mobiles, appliquéed to accessories or as home décor, joined together to make stunning lacy scarves. There’s also seasonal uses on gift tags or greeting cards.

But we’ve got a wee trick to show you: how to make one of these beauties into a very simple decoration that would look splendid on the Christmas tree, or make a sweet last-minute gift.

All you need is your small crocheted snowflake, a simple wire bangle (we got ten for €1.50 in a chain store), plain white sewing thread and a sewing needle. For our flakes, we used Petra No. 5 crochet cotton in pure white, but they’d be so pretty in bright colours too.)

Thread the needle and run the thread through one of the points of the flake, and then round the outside of the bangle:

Continue like this, lashing the snowflake to the bangle. We found that twelve attachments to the bangle worked better than six, but this probably depends on which snowflake you’ve chosen.

When you’ve attached your snowflake, pull the thread tight enough to hold the flake firmly in the centre of the circle and fasten it off. And there you are: the small start of a blizzard.

Actually, we mean this last part. It’s really, really hard to make just one. And then it’s hard to make just ten. They’re fast and they’re easy and we just don’t want to stop!

But here’s some important news to finish: we’ll be closing at 6.00pm on Sunday next, December 23rd, and re-opening at 12 noon on Wednesday January 2nd, all ready for another year of crafty and fibery fun! So make that list and check it twice….