Little sister: Hey Kahlee, these look cute…
Me: Oh yeah, you thinking of one for Asher?
Little sister: Nah, I thought it was a good idea for Hillside Décor.
And that’s how my French knitting journey began!
Honestly though it took a crochet project making a T-Rex for my nephew Asher to truly appreciate how special a handmade knitted or crochet product is. The amount of effort and care that goes into it is huge.
Now, given it was my first experience crocheting I was ecstatic firstly, that I finished it…and secondly that it actually resembled a T-Rex!
At the rate I crochet though it was just not fesable as the new product for Hillside Décor.
This is when I remembered the inspiration my sister gave me and decided to test it out and make some knitted names for all my nephews.
The first materials I used really varied. There was a mint coloured wool and two different weights of fluffy blue polyester yarns.
The wool, well because how cute is the colour (hehe). It did look lovely, but it was a little too thin and the wired showed a little.
The fluffy ones were fun, one was very thick and got stuck sometimes in the i-cord knitter. The other was waaaaay too thin and the wire showed even more than it did with the wool yarn.
After testing different yarns I found that the acrylic was easy to work with in the i-cord knitter, as well as having durable, resilient fibre properties to help extend the life of the product.
Then there was the epic wire failure on the first three names! It was all I could find in local shops as I wasn’t keen yet to invest time and money into ordering wire online. Needless to say, I ordered wire online that weekend!
The wire is just as important as the yarn. You need it to be firm enough not to bend out of shape when you pick the word up but not too firm otherwise it’s really hard to shape it. 3mm armature wire was the one I found a perfect balance in.
Once the materials were sorted it was time to really take the i-cord knitter for a spin!
Follow along as I keep learning and create these handmade cuties.
Kahlee xx
