Love your local yarn store

 Like many other people out of necessity I buy a good proportion of my yarn online but where possible I like to buy it from a bricks and mortar yarn shop or direct from indie dyers if I can. It's so helpful to see and feel yarn before buying it and you can also learn so much from knowledgeable vendors. I often say that my local yarn store is four hours away in Shrewsbury where my parents live. Ewe and Ply is a fabulous yarn store in the centre of Shrewsbury offering a great range of yarns (for all budgets) and some really special Shropshire Ply from a local flock of sheep owned by one of the owners Teri.

How to make...crochet frames

I can't believe it, but we are rapidly approaching the end of our son's first year at school; the year has simply flown by. His attention is focused on the upcoming sports day, who his teacher will be next year and what creative gifts he wants the give his teacher and class room assistant to say thank you. The latter hasn't actually taken much consideration - he has commissioned me to made exactly the same as I did for his carers in Kindergarten when he left nursery this time last year - crochet frames.

 In today's post I thought I would give you a step-by-step guide to making crochet frames as they make perfect, quick end of term gifts for teachers.

Festival of finishing

Fay, the host of The Crochet Circle Podcast is currently hosting a Festival of Finishing to support and encourage crafters to tackle long-standing projects or W.I.Ps (works in progress). Between now and the end of August, Fay is hosting a CrAL (a craft-along) over in the Crochet Circle Podcast group on Ravelry. As an added motivation, for each project completed during the period, Fay's company, Knit-it Hook-it Craft-it will make a donation to the charity Knit for Peace which does great work in this country and overseas.

How to...knit mittens

In our corner of the UK we have been having a glorious spell of warm, sunny weather - the perfect weather to be knitting a pair of mittens! Today, I wanted to share with you my progress knitting mittens as part of a KAL (knit-along) but also share with you all of the things I've learnt along the way so that you can knit mittens too!