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Halloween Ghost Knitting Pattern

By Linda on October 28, 2015 in Knitting, Mamma4earth, Tutorial, Waldorf

Hello,

I have a new pattern to share with you today for a Halloween Ghost:) He’s a really fast knit, I’ve knitted him in the round with the Magic Loop technique and I used double knitting wool with size 4mm circular needles.

You could also add a loop to the top of his head so that he can hang from something or make a mobile.

Here’s the pattern:

Materials:

A few grams of double knitting wool

4mm circular needles

Black fleece for eyes and mouth

Felting needle

Sewing needle

Small amount of stuffing

Stitches:

Kfb: knit into the front and back of a stitch to increase.

Pattern:

Cast on 5 stitches and join for knitting in the round

Round 1: Knit

Round 2: Kfb into each stitch, (10 stitches)

Round 3: Knit

Round 4: Kfb into each stitch, (20 stitches)

Rounds 5-14: Knit

Round 15: (Knit1, kfb) repeat the brackets across the round, (30 stitches)

Rounds 16-20: Knit

Cast off loosely.

Finishing:

Sew in all ends

Push a small amount of stuffing into the top of your ghost to give the head some shape.

Needle felt the eyes and mouth on with a felting needle.

Happy knitting!

Creative Friday

By Linda on October 18, 2013 in Crafts, Creative Friday, Knitting, Tutorial, Waldorf

Welcome to Creative Friday,

Please feel free to post your links to anything you have created and would like to share, it can be a recipe, sewing tutorial, knitting tutorial, felting, crochet, crafts, art, spinning, weaving, working with fibre, photography, poetry…etc…

I have added a Creative Friday button on the sidebar of my blog, please feel free to add it to your blog for Creative Friday and link it to http://www.naturalsuburbia.com/ so others can find this space and share their creativity too:)

1. I have started a Creative Friday Flickr Group where you can post your beautiful photos that you link to each Creative Friday. To join the group, please go here.

2. If you would be so kind as to link back to Natural Suburbia in your blog post that would be lovely or pin, share on Facebook and Twitter.

3 Needle Cast Off Tutorial

By Linda on August 1, 2013 in Knitting, Tutorial

As you know, I’ve been working on a new pattern called Pickles the Cat, one of the cast off techniques for Pickles is a 3 needle bind / cast off, so I thought I would share a tutorial here and also link to it from the pattern.

I have turned the work inside out and checked that I have the same even amount of stitches on each needle.

When starting, place the right needle through the first stitch on both needles and knit them together ending up with 1 stitch on the right needle as you can see in the above photo.

Then again place the right needle through the first stitch on both needles.

Knit those 2 stitches together and now there will be a second stitch on the right needle.

Two stitches on the right needle now.

Then using the left needle, pass the back stitch over the front stitch on the right needle and 1 stitch will remain.

Continue knitting the first stitch on both needles together on the 2 left needles and passing the back stitch over the front stitch on the right needle until you come to the end of the knitting.

At the end of the knitting just pass the back stitch over the front stitch and thread the yarn through the remaining loop to finish off.

The cast off cat on the wrong side, with a 3 needle cast off.

The end,

Happy Knitting!

Cooking Outside with a “Hay Box”

By Linda on June 25, 2013 in Birds, Family, Homesteading, Tutorial

Some visitors came and ate lunch at the bird-feeders today, this is a Black Collared Barbet.

Crested Barbet

Jen, Caiden and Erin cooked dinner outside today, the exciting part was that Jen showed us how to use a “Hay Box” to cook the rice. She learnt about it at scouts on one of her camps. All you need is a box, a black box would be better as it attracts and traps heat from the sun but we worked with what we had and it worked just fine. A good time to start would be when the sun is high in the sky, midday.

Line the base of the box with a thick blanket, then add newspaper so that it will surround and cover the pot once it’s placed in the box and then another blanket is placed on top of the newspaper which is covering and surrounding the pot.

First boil the water in a pot on the stove, once the water is boiling, add rice and take your boiling pot outside and place it inside the newspaper in the hay box. Really surround the pot with plenty of newspaper and do it quickly so that not too much heat is lost. Then cover everything with a thick blanket so that it’s nice and snug.

Close the lid tight and leave the box in direct sunlight. On a hot day, it should cook within a few hours. Check on the rice once or twice, not too often, as the heat will escape.