Little Socks for little feet . . . and some sheep's tails :)

Thursday seems to becoming my day for blogging :)  I've been pretty busy the last week - it started last weekend when I took the notion to make a little pair of baby socks with some lovely cream chunky wool I had purchased for another use.  My mantra at the moment is "make use of what I have" in terms of yarn anyway!  Once I looked at my yarn stash I started coming up with all sorts of ideas and notions of things I wanted to knit - the plan is to stock my Etsy shop with lots of yummy knitty and tweedy creations, yay!

I have to say I LOVE using my double pointed needles - be it bamboo ones or steel ones.

This yarn was lovely to use - I finally found out that it's a Drops yarn (wool and alpaca mix) so very soft for little squidgy feet :)  I think they turned out quite cute:

I made the decision this week to rename my Etsy shop to the same as my website/business name:  Handmade on the Croft.  I'd named it Yarns on the Croft initially but I've decided to keep everything under the same name now - keep it simple!  

I'm pleased with how my own website is developing and having my own domain name is really good :)  It's also simple to contact me from there on my Contact page :)  I'm trying to tidy things up so it's easy to find me and my 'makes' online!

Back to the fun stuff - I also decided last weekend to make another fair isle sheep sleeve with a little change to the reverse.  I made this one in grey which I thought worked well . . . 

I made a little change and instead of having the reverse exactly the same I embroidered two little bobbly tails (on two bobbly sheep bums!) instead . . . 

Sorry, not so clear in my photo but you get the gist!  I thought it added a bit of fun anyway :) 

I do like how the sleeves are very slim but quite densely knitted because of the double width of fair isle technique . . . 

I've still to get back to my new sewing machine - perhaps later today!  I think the last thing I made was this tweed/vintage style sleeve (I'm a little suspicious that this is what, er, damaged my old machine).  Perhaps I'll be using a lighter weight lace embellishment the next time - I did love this one though . . . 

It's listed here :)

As you can see I've been very focussed on making stock at the moment - perhaps a craft fair should be on the cards later in the year.  It's something I will have to look into definitely :)

For myself I'm still drooling over this yummy yarn which I'd forgotten I'd ordered before Christmas and it arrived well into January . . . 

It's a lovely dark/gold bronze colour - Ji-ji the cat would loveto get her paws on it :)  It'll be on the back burner for a while though until I get my Etsy shop stocked up :)  I have a few more ideas of stock I would like to add eg. tweedie buttons, perhaps more kiddie socks, and of course I'm sure I'll be making some more fair isle phone sleeves - I've another design in the wings!

Are you an Esty fan or not?  I do love browsing through it myself but it's difficult to be impartial when you are also selling from it at the same time!  Any suggestions/opinions re either of my online shops would be gratefully received - I can take it, hehe!

Better go - I still haven't checked out that sewing machine - oops :)  A busy week at the office job next week so I may have to take a week out of my blog - back soon though!

Apologies for a very 'shop' driven post - I guess it's where I'm at, at the moment though :)

Alison x