As every year, the intention is to create stronger bonds between us as a community, making space for the joy of sharing and being joined together by our love for our crafts and the joy of creating and making. With so many wonderful contributions, we are absolutely delighted to invite you to vote in the 2025 edition of our The For the Love of … Show and Tell Challenge!
We made 3 categories, open to a well of interpretations, it was totally up to you what meaning to put into them: Rekindled, Travelling Threads, Blessing in Disguise.
Inviting our dear newsletter subscribers* to contribute for this fourth edition, we are over the moon with how many of you that came to play along!
I am absolutely bursting with excitement! Our gallery is now open and voting can commence. Yes, there will be rewards for the winners, and also a prize draw between those who decide to vote – but remember, it is all about humor and friendliness, we are not looking for the perfect nor the ‘best girl in the class’ – this is for us all to find joy and a moment of happiness through our Love for knitting, yarn, crochet, fibre, making and creating … and everything between.
* To join in you have to be a newsletter subscriber, because this is all about us bonding together as a group.
Rekindled
Project #01 – by Elaine
I have always wanted to knit the Eir sweater by Karihdesign. Earlier this year I finally made the Tusseladd cardigan by Linka Neumann and had 2 balls of the turquoise left over. This seemed like fate and Rekindled my desire to knit Eir. Luckily for me you had all the other colours in stock and so I was finally able to knit this sweater.
I absolutely loved making it.
Project #02 – by Alison
It has taken me two years (at least) to finish the knitting of the Shetland Star Allover Shetland cardigan, steels and all. I had the benefit of Hazel Tindall’s video to follow but still made plenty of mistakes. My 62 year old hands found knitting with Uradale’s lovely DK yarn much harder than the usual jumperweight but it has made this lovely thing which is for my Mother (hence the shorter sleeves). All I need to do now is sew on the buttons and steam the ribbing. I nearly gave up so many times but I am glad now to have finished and look forward to more Allover…..just in fingering weight!
Project #03 – by Anne
Pattern is Navelli, it went through lots of stages and may qualify for all your categories!
Travelling stitches: we were going on holidays in summer. I put myself under pressure at the very last minute to find a holiday knit using stash yarn. Late night pick, stuffed everything in a bag and went.
It’s bottom up and in the round. During the holiday I finished the first colour work panel. I loved it. I didn’t love the pattern then telling me to switch to a different colour and continue in stocking stitch. Still trying to use up stash and very stuck. It became a UFO and lurked for well over a year.
Rekindled/blessing in disguise: Finding myself with no project at midwinter 2024, I took it out again. Took a hard look at the stash. Thought I’d do it all in the beautiful dark blue – but of course I don’t have enough. That was when I decided to add on another colourwork panel. Loved the green but (you guessed) didn’t have enough to keep going so added in the grey, cream and light blue.
The project was originally chosen to use some gorgeous yellow fyberspates 4ply bought in KWA at the beginning of lockdown. I’m still looking for the right project for that yarn – maybe that’s blessing in disguise number 2! I’ve used some of my Jamieson’s jumper weight stash and I still have the fyberspates to come back to.
Project #04 – by Elizabeth
I’ve attached a photo of my knitted ‘giraffes’ which sort of symbolise me and my husband! We’ve been together for so many years now and he does put his arm around me when I’m upset – even if I have to ask! (Partners are not always in tune with others’ feelings!).
I knitted them as an in between project when I wasn’t sure what to knit next – I’m back on track now!
Project #05 – by Janet
I’d like to nominate my Heart Chain by Mayo for the Rekindled category.
I knit a lot, it’s definitely therapy for me, and usually choose stranded patterns, lacy summer cardigans, gloves and mittens and LOTS of socks.
However, my daughter is a huge Gilmore Girls fan and in homage to the character Rory I decided to make an up to date Aran sweater for her birthday.
I haven’t knit an Aran pattern with all the cables for donkeys years but loved, loved this project.
Project #06 – by Lucy
Here is a shawl rekindled. I cast it on on 2022 but hated knitting it. Over the bank holiday weekend I dug it out and finished it! Amongst my knitting friends it is known as the b**tard shawl 🤣
Travelling Threads
Project #01 – by Jane
This is for Travelling Threads and this is a poncho i made for my friend Carole which i gave to her today and she will be taking it back to Oregon .
Project #02 by Meredith
This scarf is a journey I’m taking in yarn — an ombré path stitched from many small skeins from an Advent calendar, each one a different place to be and think for a while. The knit flows up and down in a quiet rhythm, echoing the rise and fall of hills, stairs, stories, challenges.
I’ve been carrying this project with me as I travel. It’s more than a companion — it’s a comfort. The steady motion of the needles is soothing, the pattern easy to memorise and do as the markers click through my fingers. A portable peace I bring wherever I go.
Knitting grounds me in unfamiliar places. It gives my hands something to do while the world moves by. And somehow, it always starts conversations. On planes, in parks, in waiting rooms, someone always asks — what are you making? It becomes a thread between strangers, weaving stories into the fabric of the journey.
This scarf holds those quiet moments, those unexpected chats, and the calm in between destinations. It’s not just something I made. It’s something that moved with me, and held space for me, every stitch of the way.
Project #03 by Chris
Oh we’ve all been there. ‘This time I’ll be really careful. I’ll lay it out on the floor. I’ll go really slow. I’m sure it’ll be fine. And I’m off to catch a train, so I won’t wait to have it wound.’ Now, 9 days after I embarked on this journey, I’m intimately acquainted with every centimetre of this hank of Gleem Lace. We’ve travelled together all right, all 800 metres of plum coloured delight. And some, indeed many, of those 800 metres have been through my hands more than once. In the end, it becomes quite a mindful activity.
I’ll probably have hundreds of metres left over. Maybe I’ll wind it back into a hank.
Project #04 by Herpria
Travelling threads; Frantically knitting while packing for a very long trip ahead.
I’ve met my sister’s partner many times before, but recently our family met theirs for the first time. When I say their family I mean their parents, brother, sister-in-law (pregnant with a future niece/nephew), and the wonderful little Mana.
Mana, an adorable little 3 year old, had explained to her parents before they knocked on the door, “I might be a bit shy”.
As it turns out Mana and I are best friends separated by (only!) 3 decades or so, with many things in common; in her words, “you have curly hair too, like me”. I turned into a child again as we shared our love of Disney, plasticine (I made her a little flower she insisted on preserving and taking home), Lego and… cardigans! Her family explained that she insists on wearing or bringing one along everywhere, even when it isn’t very cold. She clearly just loves the comfort of something knitted wrapped around her. I’m sure many of us can relate.
After hours of fun, playing, and cuddles I asked if I could take some measurements so I could knit her a handmade cardigan. Mana happily obliged.
After bittersweet goodbyes I immediately started searching for patterns and found The Daisy cardigan by Knitting For Olive. I would knit it in purple and pink, Mana’s favourite colours. There was only one thing standing in my way: I’d be travelling to Australia next month and not be returning until next year. Would I be able to knit this cardigan before my travels to keep a toddler, with a toddler sized attention span but paradoxically long memory, fulfilled? I never give myself these kinds of deadlines when I knit, but I really don’t want Mana to feel forgotten while I’m away.
This is my progress so far and I’m determined to finish it. Just a few more daisies to embroider and crochet buttons to make. A few weeks before the bags need to be packed and we’re on our way on one of the longest journeys you can make. Worry not, yarn and knitting paraphernalia will be packed!
We’ve all come to an agreement that they will surprise Mana with the cardigan if she mentions it a lot while I’m away, or for her birthday (Halloween baby!) rather than in the peak of summer.
It will be wrapped up with a note for her in my absence, sending love from our travels. A substitute knitted hug until the real thing when I return.
Project #05 – by Sally
My photo for Show and Tell are some little ‘lovies’ Im making for the annual Christmas Shoe Box Appeal, organised by local churches in and around the village and sent to underprivileged kids around the world.
Category – maybe Travelling Threads, as I know not where they will end up!?
Project #06 by Jo
I have been making a huge effort to use stash rather than my habit of seeing a project I want to complete and buying more. I was also really exited that the Woolly Good Festival was planned to bring back a yarn festival in Edinburgh. I live in Cornwall my twin lives in Sussex and pre-covid we met in Edinburgh every year for a treat a long weekend and a yarn festival and twin time what could be better! So we both signed up to the fundraiser to get the festival going and in exchange received the most wonderful yarn and other bits and pieces.
So I used to make this cardigan, my husband wasn’t sure when I showed him the pattern said something about I would look like I am wearing a blanket! But even he admits the final creation is fab. I used the yarn from the festival pack plus some yarn I had had for years with a plan to make a shawl and finished in time to wear back to this years festival.
Made me so happy.
Project #07 by Sofia
I haven’t bought much yarn in the past year because I have a huge stash that I’m turning into a crochet blanket and other things. Also my love of knitting has taken me to do a foundation course on textile art. Enclosed is a picture of my final project samples. It is work in progress. I am not sure if this qualifies as it uses thread.
This piece is based on migration and cultural integration.
Project #08 by Elizabeth
Please find attached a photo of my completed Polina Pullover by Teti Lutsak. I knitted it with your Solje Yarn from Norway for a friend in Sydney, Australia. It will be travelling to her over the next few weeks hence “Travelling Threads”.
We both loved the pattern & wanted to support the designer.
Project #9 by Rosemary
I thought I’d submit this cardigan under Travelling Threads, for the orange yarn.
My friend passed it to me once she’d finished a project and there was never enough for me to make a large garment (I’m a sweater knitting sort of person), plus it’s really not my colour.
However,I crocheted some slippers for a friend with it, taught a colleague to crochet and have now used it in this lovely cardigan, which was my first intarsia project. And I still gave some left, which I will pass on to out local textile reuse hub (Thread Republic), which uses odds and ends in community projects and to make stuffing etc.
Project #10 by Alena
I absolutely cannot travel without some knitting or crochet, not even just have something to occupy idle hands while travelling (much less if that these days with a toddler!) but because it’s just part of relaxing while on holiday, however could I truly relax without some knitting?! One of my favourite things is always how the project and trip become so intrinsically linked in my mind as well, seeing the item I made brings me right back to where I made those stitches…
Project #11 by Alena
Actually have to submit a second photo for travelling threads, this is one of my most vivid memories of travel crafting (crocheting in this case), cast on the shawl at the beach in San Francisco and mostly finished it on that trip. It was one of my favourites for years, until travelling took it away ironically, lost in our move to Germany. I still think of it often, maybe one day I’ll make another on a different trip.
Project #12 – by Jessica
I’d like to enter my sunflower blanket to the Travelling Threads category!
I made this blanket for my grandma (Babci) for Mother’s Day. I only had about 2 months to make this and I travel quite often for work and fun so I made squares everywhere! My threads came with me to Paris, Lyon, Inverness, Isle of Skye, and the overground and many London green spaces. It’s been a years’ long dream of mine to crochet a blanket for my Babci since she is a seasoned crocheter herself. It’s now time to send these threads on one final journey: across the pond to the New Jersey!
Blessing in Disguise
Project #01 – by Sally
It is my Framed Sweater by Knit Designer, Andrea Mowry. I was merrily going round in the round with the stocking stitch side of the body from the bottom up as in the pattern and then the big challenge came…I had to knit the stranded colour work on the wrong side, a purl side, with the continuation of the pattern as well. This happened at the division between the front and back of the body.
I have mastered capturing the floats by using my left hand and right hand in a continental and thrower style for the rounds. It had opened up a whole new range of stranded knitting and I have a few sweaters and socks to prove this but this lovely sweater presented a problem. I was labouring over the different strands for picking up or dropping to the back and the process was so slow. It took me back to those days when I would drop a strand and pick up another strand to knit with. I thought if I can do the capturing of floats as I do with knitting in the round then surely I can do this with the purl side and flat knitting? In about row 12 I finally mastered doing this and what had initially presented itself as a “Foe” had now become a “Friend”. It is a new technique I have mastered and very much a blessing in disguise!
Project #02 – by Sharron
For Christmas, my husband bought me some beautiful wool and silk hand dyed yarn we saw at a yarn festival and gifted it to me from our cat. As planned, I made myself a pair of socks with it. The fabric was soft and the pattern onit was brilliant, a combination of greens infused with flashes of yellow, orange, blue and purple. I loved them! I was dismayed when on the third or fourth occasion of wearing them, I found that the yarn on the sole near the heel on one foot had failed. I contacted the vendor to check that I had used the yarn correctly in that the yarn was suitable for socks and was advised that I had but it would seem that was not so from my experience. I unwound the socks and put the yarn aside until I could work out what to do with it.
Several weeks later, I was going through my stash of sock yarn and found some zingy green yarn left over from a pair of socks made a long time ago. It made me think of the yarn I had had for Christmas, which made me think how nicely they would go together. I formed an idea – use the proven zingy green sock yarn for the sole of the sock and the Christmas yarn for the leg and top of the foot. It took longer to knit than usual as the foot was not knitted in the round but the idea worked. I now has these wonderful socks in the yarn so kindly bought for me and have made a small dent in my yarn stash. They make me smile whenever I see or wear them.
Project #03 – by Sarah
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine was sharing photographs on Facebook of the huge – and very beautiful – Medusa tattoo she had just had outlined on her back. At about the same time, my ceaseless wanderings through the remote back alleys of Ravelry took me to Annie Watts’ Medusa Mittens.
I immediately cast on.
The chart is wide and very complicated. I wasn’t many rounds up the right hand mitten when I realised I was on different round numbers for the back and the palm. “Not to worry”, I thought: “I can bodge this”. By round 18, it had become clear that I would not be able to bodge this. I had to rip back all 18 rounds and go and find my metallic board and magnetic straight edge to force me to keep on the same line all the way across. (I hate knitting like that: you can’t knit with reference to the previous round, so you are just counting stitches.)
All was then reasonably under control until I got to the thumb gusset instructions:
“On row 25, knit to the first gusset marker. Place the next 18 sts on a length of scrap yarn. Cast on 10 sts using both strands of yarn and a long tail cast on, working the colors as shown on the chart in the green box.”
It was at this point that, had I been knitting these for myself, I would very definitely have given up. Two colour long-tail cast on on one little DPN across the thumb gusset gap, changing the leading colour to incorporate the chart design? You have got to be kidding me! What about the good old backward loop cast on, eh? Bridging thumb gusset gaps since time imemmorial,
So, I turned the TV off. And I concentrated really hard. And I did it.
And then I did it again later with the left mitten.
Which means that, should comparable instructions appear in any future mitten patterns, I won’t need to hide behind the sofa. Because I know I can do it.
Project #04 – by Maggie
I was privileged to test knit the Stick Season Jacket by Rebecca Clow. Rebecca encourages modifications to her patterns if you run them past her, and my modification is length! It wasn’t long after the announcement of the end of the Winter Fuel Allowance and I was worried about being able to afford to keep myself warm throughout winter. So my “jacket” modification is length! I made a full-length dressing gown/ cardigan to wear in the house.
I used BC Garn Hamelton Tweed 1, adding Ginger’s Leading Lady Lace to the ribbing and textured yoke. So I think that getting to test what was meant to be an autumn jacket turned out to be a Blessing in Disguise so far as my heating bills are concerned!
It has had so much wear.
Project #05 – by Elena
I’m currently knitting the Wave sweater by Spektakelstrik. I’d call it For the Love of Patience and Doggedness. I must say colour work and stranded work are not my thing. But the FOs on Ravelry look so amazing I wanted to knit this sweater. I used the kid version, as I’m petite and my gauge is different. I started off by finding a mistake in the short rows. I contacted the designer, who corrected it soon enough, but even so, I spent some time scratching my head wondering what I was doing wrong. After separating the yoke from the sleeves, I started knitting the sleeves. I watched several tutorials showing how to keep the right tension, to spread out the stitches, etc. I knitted to below the elbow of the first sleeve, despite realising the sleeve puckered and pulled halfway through the rounds (I’m using magic loop). I joyfully persevered. I tried it on several times, ignoring the bumps that were glaring at me in the mirror. Until it became unbearable to see, unignorable (if such a word exists). So I frogged the entire sleeve. And knitted it again. Satisfied with my result, I proceeded on to the second sleeve. Made the same mistake again and continued undeterred until I got to my forearm, at which point I decided to frog the whole sleeve. So basically I knitted almost 4 sleeves. But I’ve learned a trick that helps me keep the tension in check (a bit). Before changing colour, I do a yo and pull the resulting loop to keep it loose across the stitches.I hope blocking will help smooth out the fabric and even out the stitches, because I look a bit like the Michelin guy in it now.
Project #06 – by Mary
Three Chicks
I found myself smiling at the rage for comfort chickens. Fun to watch friends make one and ask ‘who’s it for?’ A sister, a friend, or maybe just because.
I’m Irish and was raised as a practical knitter. I make things you can use- not art or decorations. The farthest I may go toward frivolity is Christmas stockings; maybe an ornament. But who ‘uses’ a stuffed chicken?
Something clicked one day when I watched my grandchildren improvising sock puppets and having a great time. How different these kids are in the life they create for their puppets! So I made the chickens; a rough and tumble multicolored one with all parts firmly attached for a toddler boy; a fancy Prima Dona for our wild child who dresses up as everything she can think of, and whose chicken wanted ‘more jewels, more jewels!’ And for the sensitive quiet girl, a chicken with a pocket she can ride in when she needs to. In 50 years of knitting, I have never had more fun.
JUST WOW!!! How many amazing projects you guys came up with, I am in awe!!! Now off to vote, let’s find out who’s our favourites! You’ll find the ‘ballot’ here. you can submit your vote up until midnight UK time Friday June 6th. We’ll do the count and announce winners in the newsletter Sunday June 8th. Happy Voting!
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