Beaker Button Blog

It was my Mum's birthday today, so yesterday Short Round, Mum and I headed to Baiter Point in Poole for a picnic and a wander on the beach.  We're borrowing a friend's dog at the moment so she came too.  The sea and sky were very stormy so I managed to take some nice shots of the sea, and birds and shells.  I'd like to turn the shell photo into a felt picture. This is also the last post for our mini KAL, with instructions on how to put it together.  You've probably guessed from the post title that it's a mobile.   You will need two metal hangers, 75cm ribbon and duct tape .  The pattern and instructions are below.  If you'd like a PDF of the whole pattern including instructions for the mobile it's on Ravelry here Sleepy Sheep www.beakerbutton.co.uk   ©Jen Best 2015        I used Petlake Alpaca double knit for sleepy’s body and 3.5mm straight needles.  I used blac...

We went to my brothers for dinner on Saturday, which was lovely.  I was tasked with bringing a pudding, so while Short Round and I were shopping in Waitrose Saturday morning I spent a goodly amount of time searching through their delicious looking puddings for something without milk in (Short Round can't do cows milk, it makes him incredibly snotty).  Of course, everything, absolutely everything, has milk in so I resorted to an old favourite that my Mum makes.  She calls it Zebra Pudding.  I substituted normal natural yogurt for Goats milk yogurt (2 large tubs) and muscovado sugar for plain soft brown sugar (2 tablespoons full).  I like runny honey in mine as well (about 3 tablespoons). To make it you pour the yogurt into a shallow dish or tray, swirl in the honey and sprinkle the sugar over the top.  Leave it in the fridge for about half an hour (it will keep longer if you want it to) and all the sugar sort of dissolves leaving stripes and swirls, hence th...

This week my boys and I went on a little adventure.  It started when I was checking my Twitter feed as I was lying in the bath (like you do) and I spotted a post about the Lovejoy comet that's passing Earth at the moment.  Being a bit of a night sky freak (bet you didn't know that about me did you?) I sloshed out of the bath, threw on some clothes, rounded up the boys and headed out to Vernham Dean with my camera and tripod.  Vernham is the nearest place I could think of with dark enough skies.  We didn't manage to see the comet but I did get a nice shot of the Plough.  On the way home to hot chocolate I was thinking about my blog and what I wanted to do this week and I came up with the idea of making a night time mobile with stars, a moon and sheep (to help you sleep obviously).  This weeks free pattern is for a star.  He's called Twinkle (I wanted to call him Burt but I was told it wasn't appropriate) and he's waiting for you below.  Once all th...

I've got lurgy today. I haven't felt this unwell for years so it's a bit of a cheat post this week.  I've been rearranging the shop so I have a working and dyeing area. Somewhere to design and write my third book (knitting patterns this time, with Dorset buttons of course), to dye yarn including our new Mini Skein club , and to build my button kit wholesale empire. So here's the cheat bit. I haven't had time to write up the granny square pattern I'd planned for this post. This is a fingerless mittens pattern I wrote a little while ago instead. It can be downloaded as a PDF from Ravelry here . Stripy Knitcol Mitts Abbreviations below Tension: 5cm x 5cm square = 9 sts x 13 rows in stocking stitch, Size 4m needles or appropriate size to achieve the correct tension, yarn needle for sewing up. 50g Knitcol or similar DK weight yarn. 1 size fits most. Left glove Cast on 34 sts Row 1: *K 2, P 2* repeat last 2 sts, K2 Row 2: *P 2, K 2* repeat to last 2 s...