Burnt Cookie: Knit Pro

I have finished knitting my first ever stuffed toy! It is Louie the Lovebot by Rebecca Danger.

I absolutely loved knitting Louie, and I think knitting toys may be a new found favourite!

Rebecca's pattern was very clear and easy to follow, and had lots of photos demonstrating what she means. I would really recommend this pattern to anyone wanting to give toy making a go. I liked the pattern so much I went and took advantage of the 5 pattern discount she offers!

Whilst knitting this I learnt:

Magic Loop

Some intarsia (although this did go a bit wrong!)

Picking up stitches

Kitchener stitch

And knitting with waste yarn to expose live stitches later.

As much as I love Louie, he is far from perfect:

His eyes are wonky

I struggled a bit with knitting intarsia in the round, luckily it is all hidden inside because it became bit of a mess! After finishing him I found out that I should've knit a row of the heart, then purled the next row of the heart and just slipped the stitches on the next round (sorry if this makes no sense!)

His stripes on his arms are a bit wonky where I pulled the yarn too tight.

There is a slight gap on one of his feet where the leg connects because I didn't pick the right stitch up.

I made him out of Patons DK 100% acrylic yarn, which I have loads left of and only cost £1.69 a ball, bargain!

I knit on 3.5mm needles and used my Knit Pro Spectre needles. I think my needle and yarn choice was probably the only thing I didn't really enjoy whilst knitting this. I have no problem with acrylic yarn and think it works great for toys, but if you don't know, Knit Pro Spectra needles are also plastic. Plastic yarn on plastic needles? Not a nice combination at all, and lots of squeaking!

Because Louie is a robot, of course he likes Xbox!

So this weekend I went to Alexandra Palace for the knitting and sewing show.

The show itself was pretty good, there was a huge selection of vendors there and lots of lovely things on display, however I am not sure if I would go again next year as the venue got so crowded and hot that it made me feel quite sick and at times irritated, especially when people stopped in the incredibly narrow aisles and blocked them!

Anyway, whilst I was there I picked up a few things, so here is what I got!

I'll start up with the magazine bundle.

Homemaker is a brand new magazine, so to try and promote it they had the magazine in a bag along with a Knit TV dvd, 3 different balls of yarn (they had different colours in each bag) and a set of knitting needles, you also got to pick either Knit Today or the sewing magazine, which both had free gifts with them, all for £6!

The yarn it comes with is 100% acrylic and is pretty awful, but considering Lets Knit is £5.99 and Homemaker is £4.99 it was bit of a bargain that I couldn't resist. I also picked one up for my nan.

Homemaker is a lovely magazine, and this one is full of Christmas ideas. It has a lovely mix of cooking, knitting, sewing and other crafts, and is great if you are into vintage things or the whole Cath Kidston style.

Next up are the very gorgeous Knit Pro needles I treated myself to. They are so pretty I had to take a close up of the pattern on them.

The ones I got are from the Symfonie range.

I got double pointed needles in 3.5mm and 4.5mm and straight needles in 4.5mm.

These are the first wooden needles I have ever owned, actually they are the first non aluminium needles I have ever owned and now I know why people are so fond of them and why people don't rate aluminium.

As you can see I was so excited by these that I cracked them open as soon as I came home and started knitting up my latest project.

These feel so nice against my finger tips, hold onto the wool nicely but are also very easy to knit with, I can't get over how different they feel to knit with then my other needles!

I thought these where quite expensive, at £5.50 a pack, but after looking around other stalls I found that these where actually the cheapest by about £1. I got them from Knitting 4 fun which had a great stall there.

Next up is the yarn I got from Jamiesons of Shetland.

Once again I opened it straight away as I was so excited to get going with my latest project.

I got the Shetland Spindrift in Peach, Royal (this is the most gorgeous, bright blue, the picture isn't doing it justice!), Crimson and Sholmit.

This is proper wooly stuff, and I am not keen on the feel at all, however I am using it for felting and I have actually already finished one of my projects this morning with the yarn and it works brilliantly for felting, they also have a huge colour selection.

I also have to say, Jamiesons had amazing customer service, the woman who was serving me was so lovely. There was a shade I was looking for and they had sold out so she offered to send it free of delivery, they already had discounts on the wool that day so it would've cost her the same amount to post it as the wool itself was, I told her it was fine and just picked another shade, but I really appreciate gestures like this, she also let me off 20p as I was searching in my purse for it, so I got these 4 balls of wool for £11, what a bargain!

The last thing I got was some gorgeous sock yarn.

This was bit of a splurge, £9 for 50g but its so gorgeous and thought I would treat myself for doing so well at work (to be honest the whole show was bit of a treat, but you know what I mean).

The yarn is from Tall Yarns N Tails and is 80% baby alpaca and 20% bamboo.

They had loads of pretty colour choices, but I thought seeing as I am splurging I should go for shades of pink seeing as it is my favourite colour and I know I would always love it.

I have bought this because of yet another project I plan to do, so many in the pipeline! Hopefully I can share them with you soon.

So there you go! Sorry for walls of texts and photos but I am just so excited to share this all with you.

The Knit Pro needles are probably my favourite purchase, just because they have completely changed my outlook on knitting needles, although the sock yarn is so luxurious its a close second.

I just have to mention Jamiesons again as the people where just so lovely and they have great products, so go check them out!