A shawl for Blossom!

Hello! I'm Annie from knitsofacto, and I've been knitting lace for almost as long as I've been knitting anything (if not always intentionally in the beginning ... it is way too easy to make holes where you don't want then when you're starting out!). I've never designed and knitted beaded lace on such a small scale as Blossom's shawl before though. But when I was asked to contribute something warm and woolly to the Red Nose Day Doll's wardrobes I knew that at least one of those little ladies deserved something a tad more exciting than a scarf.

Being possessed of far more yarn than I can probably ever hope to knit* it was a certainty I'd find something suitable in my stash, and this lovely raspberry pink alpaca/wool blend, a fine laceweight, was surely the perfect choice. Finding matching miniature glass beads proved a bit more of a challenge however, and my miniscule 0.5mm crochet hook - essential for adding tiny beads to tiny knitting - was adrift somewhere in the mess that is my studio mid revamp. Much hunting through boxes ensued but eventually I was ready, and with a cuppa ever to hand and Radio 4 and my five lovely whippets for company - they like to lie on my feet when I'm knitting which is soooo warming in cold weather - my needles clicked away for a whole long afternoon, and then another, and then Blossom had a shawl**. And d'ya know, it made my heart sing!

Being involved in a project that has brought so many talented designer/makers together in support of such an awesome cause has been a privilege from start to finish. Now all we need is for everyone who reads this to spread the word. Perhaps you could tweet about the dolls, link to their facebook page, or share a link to Mac's video or this blog. Anything to alert folks to the fact that one of these little people and his/her belongings could be theirs. Bidding begins on eBay on March 7th ... go on, you know you want to!


* Knitters call this SABLE, or stash acquisition beyond life expectancy, and it is the most pleasant affliction, just so long as you never see a moth!

** And Mac had a manly scarf, which should have had woolly 'red nose' pompoms on the ends, but didn't - you can read about that little disaster here - and Poppy had her very own knitting bag, complete with needles, wool, and a teeny card of itsy bitsy buttons. Oh, and Maisie had a wee wooden dolly of her own (because I don't just knit), with shiny black painted on hair and shiny black painted on boots, and long spotty pantaloons, and a flowery dress with a ribbon bow at the back, and blow me if I didn't forget to take a photo of her before posting her to HQ so I'm hoping Ros might arrange a little photo shoot (pretty please Ros :) )