embellishment and Punta mohair

Kim Hughston has knit this beautiful hat from the book "Knitting in the Details" by Kim Hargreaves. I picked it up at the Chapters in Peterborough. Can you have too many Kim's in your life? Don't think so.

It is a cloche style, knit back and forth in the British manner. We looked through other colours in our collection and found this delightful combination of the Punta mohair with glitter. Shiny kicks it up a notch as they say in the cooking shows.

Kim used one strand of Punta fine hand painted mohair and one strand of Silk Mohair Glitter with a 4.5mm needle and acheived the right tension. She really enjoyed making the flowers and adding them to the hat. I like the way she placed the small shell buttons in the centres and scattered the knit flowers on the sides. The knit picot cast on edge is very attractive and easy to make.

This smokey Silk Mohair Glitter combined with Punta is also lovely.

My dear Cubano friend/sitiching sister Suset is a master embroiderer.

She makes the lovely tea and table cloths you see in our studio.

The borders are all done completely by hand with pulled thread and hem stitching. Nice to have the young eyesight! My friend Brock at Port Perry Optical has helped me out recently by checking the strength of my current prescription glasses and suggesting reading glasses just a little bit stronger. Wonderful is all I can say, just that little bit of magnification makes a huge difference.

I recently embroidered a similar cloth for my beautiful niece Emily in a different colour. A bit of embroidery make a refreshing change from knitting once in a while. I am so happy to see embellishment celebrated in hand knits. This particular pattern is one Suset found in a Havana newspaper from the 1940's. The herringbone flowers are very economical of thread and quick to do, my favorite is the stem stitching.