New Year, new house and a new design

I know it may be a little late but Happy New Year! I hope that 2012 brings us all health and happiness though at the moment I’d be quite happy to have a fully fitted kitchen and somewhere dust free to work from. Sam and I have done a number of house renovations before so when we bought the Brighton house we thought ‘ah knock out that wall, stick in a steel here and create a new large kitchen / dining / living room’. Mmmm so we underestimated exactly how much upheaval this work would cause and whilst I’ll spare you all the dusty, fusty smelling details of what it takes to update a house that has sat unoccuppied for over a year and untouched for much longer than that I will say that we’re over the worst of it – we may even have a kitchen come the end of next week.

We’ve sourced 1930′s doors from Kent and ‘flooring’ from Methyr Tydfil although that bad man lied when he said the flooring was paint-free. In fact it was tongue and groove with the tongue removed and we’re currently on the second day of using the coarsest sand paper known to man trying to remove the inches deep layers of white lead-based gloss he somehow failed to mention. All this aside the house is going to be beautiful and well worth all the blood, sweat, tears and love that we’re putting into it. I’ll post a couple of pictures when it’s complete but in the meantime I’d like to give you a wee New Year present.

Knitted in my Chunky Baby Alpaca, Edie is an infinity scarf that you could easily knit in a weekend. Infinity scarves are so on trend at the moment and I particularly like them because they never slip from your neck leaving you vulnerable to blasts of chilly air. When I was designing I really wanted to create a fabric that was knitted but looked like a chunky crochet mesh and I managed to achieve this with a simple 2 row stitch pattern. The pattern, which is available as a free pdf dowload, is knitted on 5.5 mm (US 9) needles and takes just 2 hanks of alpaca ~ I used one of my new colours, sh 4989 Mulberry.

You can see the other shades here, what colour will you use for yours?

Click here to download

New designs and the packing begins

I’m taking a few minutes out from packing boxes to do a quick post about my 2 newest designs. Having spent the last 13 years in Scotland it’s a little surreal to be packing up everything for a return south of the Border but that time has come at last. It’s been said many times that moving house is one of THE most stressful things you can do and at my last count I’ve moved 8 times in the past 13 years. So either I cope very well with stress or I’ve been watching too many episodes of Relocation, Relocation. So now to my 2 designs…

The first is the Lozenge Lace Collar knitted in my Baby Alpaca / Silk 4ply. I didn’t feel this was deep enough to be a snood and a cowl sounds so Wintry so I opted to call this a collar instead. It’s worked in the round on a large circular needle and combines a lacy rib structure with bobbles and lozenge shaped mock cabling from where I took the name. For the cast on and cast on edges the yarn is used doubled on a slighty larger needle which creates a slightly more substantial fabric with more body than the main section worked in lace.

I’ve knitted the sample in sh V414 Lippy but you could choose from any of the 4 other colours in the range to add a real ‘pop’ of colour to an outfit whether it’s Winter or Summer.

The second design is the Uppandoon Cable Scarf knitted in my Baby Alpaca DK. I LOVE this design not just because it’s so gorgeously soft and cosy to wear but also because I really enjoyed the swatching process behind the cable stitch. I wanted a cable that would work both up and down (hence the name) the finished scarf and the resulting combination of cables, yarn overs and slipped stitches has turned out better than I’d hoped. Not only does the cable work both ways on the right side of the fabric but the ‘wrong side’ looks great too with slipped stitch verticals and reverse stocking stitch being the dominant textures.

The sample is knitted in sh 9517 Chartreuse but again there are 4 other colours in the range to choose from here

Oh yes before I go I just wanted to say ‘thank you’ to Claire Kelly who was lovely enough to give me a mention on her blog Pass The Pattern here.

Hope you like these latest additions to my collection, now where’s that packing tape….

J x

The M6 and the Magic of Twitter

We’ve been doing a LOT of toi-ng and fro-ing on the M6 of late and the journey between the South East of England ( namely Brighton and Romford ) and the South East of Scotland ( namely Edinburgh ) can be both exhausting and boring. Yes we’ve gone through the CD collection, Radios 2 & 4 and as for I spy, the answer is usually ‘M’ as in ‘motorway’, ‘M6′ or just ‘more road’.

Thank goodness then for the magic of Twitter which kept me occupied for literally hours thinking up titles for #scarycraftfilms especially for Halloween. Here’s the list, groan at your leisure;

The Hills Have Eyelets
The Exor-stitch
Texas Chainstitch Massacre
Texas Chainsaw Macrame
What Dyes Beneath
(Crochet’ed ) Shawl of the Dead
28 Rows Later
Invasion of the Bodkin Snatchers
An American WearsWool in London
The Stitcher (with Rutger Hauer)
Knitwear on Elm Street
The Bride of Hank&Skein
Salem’s Knot
The Frog (one for the knitters)
Stephen Kings (kn)It
Dr Jekyll and Mr Dyed
The Wicker Basket Man (with EdWood WoodWood)
Invasion of the Beady Snatchers

Thanks to
@MollieMakes @AudreysCat @thesockgarden @SockYarnShop @RoseCottCrafts for the spooky banter

A new yarn ~ Jeanette Sloan Baby Alpaca DK

This has been a long time in the pipeline , in fact I’d really hoped to have this yarn to launch at Knit Nation last month but circumstances beyond my control meant that didn’t happen. Never mind, despite the delay I’m truly excited that it’s now here. My Baby Alpaca DK yarn is made from the same high quality 100% Superfine Baby Alpaca as the Chunky Baby Alpaca that I currently use in my designs which means of course that it’s as soft as butter to knit. I’ve deliberately kept the range of colours restricted to 5 key colours

Menthe, Chartreuse, Fuchsia, Bitter Choc and Spice

The yarn is really versatile to work with since it knits to a standard DK tension with a metreage of 100 m per 50g ball. There are also 2 new shades available in the Chunky Baby Alpaca, first Sweet…

and Mulberry…

 

I’ve been  doubly busy over the last couple of weeks re-designing the website too. Having built the original ‘Jeanette Sloan Design’ site myself I could see it had many limitations ( I’m NO web wizard ) not least the fact that it wasn’t easy to offer various shipping options for customers outside the UK. Because of this I decided to change to a shopping cart based site and as I type I’m hoping that having changed the DNS settings ( whatever that means )  the new site will be up and running, hitch free and full of new yarns & features in the next couple of hours. So whether you’re in the UK, US, EU or just about anywhere else in the world, the new site should be easier to navigate and use with varied shipping options and better laid out pages describing all the products. I’ve also moved the Free Patterns from the website to here on the blog so that it’s easier for you to download the patterns which I’m hoping to add to in the next few months.

I hope you enjoy using the new look website and would love to hear your feedback either here on the blog or on my Ravelry group page here.

Finally I’d like to say a huge thank you to John & Adrian of Knitglobal / AC Wood Speciality Fibres Ltd for their time, effort & continued support and without whom my yarns wouldn’t exist

What happened there then?

I can’t believe that the past few weeks have gone so quickly. One minute I was about to post about the great time I had at Knit Nation, and the next thing I know it’s been 3 weeks since it finished! I had a brilliant time over the weekend, thanks to Cookie, Alice and everyone else who not only made it possible but so very, very enjoyable. I don’t tend to do shows and so was very nervous about taking part in an event with such a big reputation. BUT it was truly wonderful to meet so many lovely knitters and make new friends or catch up with old ones amongst the other exhibitors. I was joined on the Saturday by my lovely friend, the very talented Georgie Troon who helped me out on Saturday.  I should at this point say particular thank you’s to John and his lovely partner Roy from www.easyknitter.co.uk and Andi from Renaissance Dyer ( thanks for the stories by the way ) who kept an eye on me and made sure that I could sneak out for tea & coffee breaks when necessary.

Since KN I’ve been finishing off another bag design for Knitting magazine and giving the website an overhaul. I’ve steered clear of shopping cart websites up until now but I’ve found the current website doesn’t make it simple or clear enough to order from overseas with regards to adding shipping costs. In addition to this there are now paper versions of some patterns available and I’ll be adding these to the new web shop which will hopefully not only process the orders but also fulfil delivery of the pdf patterns. (Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the technology works). All this should be up and running before the end of the week as there are 2 exciting and very soft additions to ‘Jeanette Sloan’ that after months of anticipation will finally arrive tomorrow by courier ( I’m crossing everything I have here ).

In the meantime the September issue of ‘Knitting’ is on sale and as promised in Ask Jeanette I’ve uploaded a video of the long tail cast on method here

Knit Nation is round the corner!

Well after months and months of anticipation Knit Nation is almost upon us and this will be my first year showing in the Marketplace. I travelled down last year for the Ravelry talk with Jess and Casey and had a quick opportunity to nosey around at the various vendors. There was such a lovely selection I decided I had to do it, so I’ll be there next week.

I was really hoping to launch 2 new yarns at the show but unfortunately there have been delays in production which mean that they won’t arrive in time. Though I’m really disappointed I will be bringing the wonderfully soft Chunky Baby Alpaca, Worsted Spun Cashmere and a selection of my printed patterns as well as of course Collection  One and 14 shades of the Knitglobal 4ply Sock Yarn.

I’ve got together with the lovely Emma at Atomic Knitting to create an exclusive extra gift with purchases over £25.00 plus there’ll be a chance to win a copy of Collection One plus yarn to knit one of the projects. Events like this are a great excuse to catch up with friends and hopefully making lots of new ones so if Knit Nation is even half as good as last year, it will be brilliant.

Hope to see you there

Kilim Cushion, Knitting, issue 92, August 2011

The latest issue of ‘Knitting’ has hit the shops and it’s theme is ‘glamping’. What is it? Well glam camping of course, and as one who has just watched coverage of last weekend’s Glastonbury with a nostalgic glint in my eye it would be my preferred choice. I went ( to Glasters ) the year the Pyramid stage burnt down and amongst many bands remember seeing Orbital on the Saturday night. It was an amazing experience and though I would LOVE to go again my days of roughing it on hard ground are over, I’d like to be able to walk the next day thanks. So yes, back to the magazine and therefore my latest design, the Kilim cushion.

Image copyright Jeanette Sloan

It’s a large floor cushion which as it’s name suggests was inspired by not just the patterning but also the beautful faded qualities which are so characteristic of traditional kilims. It’s knitted using the intarsia technique using Sirdar Click Chunky with Wool which I felt was the perfect choice as it has gentle tonal changes throughout the colourway which gives the finished cushion a slightly aged look.

At 60 cm square I wanted to keep the scale of the patterning bold rather than use a smaller motif repeated several times across the design. The main colour ( sh 111 Blazer ) is a wonderfully bright, almost tweedy mix of reds, pinks, oranges, yellow, ecru and even a touch of power blue. This clever blend of so many colours means it would suit just about any colour scheme. As a contrast I chose another yarn by Sirdar, the more neutral  Escape Chunky although don’t let the neutral description make you think of boring ecru, again there are a lot more subtle changes in each colourway, and I used sh 198.

Sketching out my first ideas

The cushion is fabric backed and fastened with 3 large wooden buttons and button loops which are made from yarn rather than fabric in order to tie the whole thing together. I’ll be writing a little tutorial on the making up of this design and adding it to the blog in the next couple of days

Image copyright Jeanette Sloan

Knit Today July issue 61

Ever wondered what inspires me? Well you can find out in the July issue of Knit Today where I come under the spotlight in their regular ‘Last Word’ feature. There’s also a chance to win a copy of ‘Collection One’ and a hank of the Knitglobal sock yarn in the Freebies competition on page 53.

The highest form of flattery

I signed up to Pinterest quite a while ago and never really did anything until a few weeks ago when I thought ‘I’ll have a go at a wee bit of pinning and create a board’. Feeling in a colourful mood I put together a board that would inspire me  in terms of colour and texture, things that would lift my heart and make me smile. One of the images I pinned is one of the most truly beautiful objects I’ve ever seen. You’ll probably know that I have a bit of a thing for beads anyway,but what could possibly be better than a bead in a great colour? A beaded bead in 2 colours!

Brick Stitch Geometric Beaded Beads byjeanpower.com

I have absolute no idea how you would even start to make something so perfectly stunning but coming across it made my day so I added it to my board. As it turns out I wasn’t the only person to be inspired by it as I got a lovely tweet from Helen who runs Ripples Crafts telling me that my Pinterest board, and in particular this image, had inspired her to create a new colourway for her Silk /Merino 4ply yarn. The result is…..

Ripplescrafts Silk/Merino 4ply sh name - Jeanette!

Thank you Helen for paying me such a HUGE compliment and naming the shade after me. The yarn is available from www.ripplescrafts.com and should you want to create your own beaded bead ( and who wouldn’t?) you can buy the instructions as a download from www.jeanpower.com

Gladstone bag – alternative handles

Since it was first published in The Knitter issue 10 the Gladstone bag has become one of my iconic designs and a lot of that is due to the fantastic handles used which beautifully sets off all the colour, beading and texture. The Lucite handles, originally bought from Bloomsbury trading when I used to run HKhandknit, were one of the many things I stashed when I closed the shop thinking “these are SO gorgeous I’ll stash them until I dream up a design in which to use them “. Well Gladstone was THE dream design for this particular pair of handles but sadly they’re no longer available from either Bloomsbury / Pavi Yarns or Trendsetter Yarns themselves. ( Just as well then that I stashed another 2 pairs in different colours!).

Anyway, after a great deal of online research I’ve come up with an alternative handle which could be used. They don’t have quite the same look as the Lucite handles which were actually quite expensive but they’re easily available and very reasonably priced plus, having checked this morning I am reliably informed by www.fun2to.co.uk that the fabric top of the bag WILL fit into the opening in the handle once the fabric has been felted. You can see their range of wide bag handles  here