Calling All Crafters!

Would you like to feature on our 'Links' page?

The White Dragon is looking for Weyrmates!

White Dragon Designs are proud to be part of the handmade and crafting community and we'd love to support other crafters if we can (this is why there are no attempts at selling restrictions on finished objects in ANY of our patterns - read more here) so if you would like to feature on our links page we'd love to hear from you!
Simply send us your link with a description of what you make/sell (handmade only please!) and some photographs and we'll get your link on the site as soon as possible. You can get in touch via our facebook page or by using the 'Enquiries' form on our contact page.
If you have your own page, it would be great if you could link to us - simply get in touch and we'll send you the relevant information.

Forthcoming Events

White Dragon Designs will be attending two craft fairs in Peterborough in June, so come along and say hello! There will be lots of beaded gifts to buy as well as the chance to have a go at knitting with our short taster sessions. And if you find yourself hooked, you can book lessons on the day - there will be special discounts for block bookings exclusively available at these events so why not give it a try?

Handmade at St John's, Peterborough, 7th June 10am-3pm

A regular fixture in the Peterborough handmade community with many talented crafters from the local area holding stalls. St John's Church is situated in the centre of Peterborough with parking in the nearby Queensgate Shopping Centre multi-storey. There's a map here to help you find it.

Werrington Village Hall, Church Street, 14th June 10am-2pm

This is an event organised by a local crafter and is a new addition to the craft fair calendar - I haven't had a stall here before but I'm really excited about it! There's a map here to help you find it, it would be great if you could come along and support the handmade community.

Knit In Public Week, June 14th - 22nd 2014

A whole week when it is IMPERATIVE that we Knit In Public! Of course I'll be celebrating the opening day at the Werrington Craft Fayre, hopefully with some of you, but what to do for the rest of the week? There has been some speculative humming and hawing about a Handmade in Peterborough (HiP) trip to the seaside at Cromer by train on the 21st, weather permitting (or not - it doesn't say Knit In Public Outdoors, does it, and I'm sure there are plenty of welcoming hostelries in Cromer just ripe for a yarnbombing...) but if anyone feels like it we could organise some trips with our knits (or crochets) to public places in the region during the week. There's a lot of beautiful countryside round 'ere if the weather is kind and if it's not there's all sorts of interesting pubs and suchlike!

And what better way to mark Knit In Public week than by learning to knit? So come along to our stalls at these events and book yourself some lessons!

Busy Days!

Exciting day today - had my first student (just the one, but it was quite nice to do a one-to-one lesson as my first) and went and set up some free online adverts which you can visit here and here. Hopefully I'll get some responses and the tuition diary will start to fill up!

A very geeky blanket.

I had a minor triumph the other day - I FINALLY finished the blanket I was knitting for my parents-in-law. I'm actually a bit sad it's finished, I quite enjoyed doing it - although not sad enough to do another straight away. It's a cable sampler blanket knit in strips and stitched together with a border added to stop the edges curling. I learnt a new joining technique with this one, Russian grafting, which gives a strong seam with a zig-zag appearance and doesn't use any extra yarn; I also used provisional cast-ons for the first time ever and discovered just how frustrating a poorly written set of instructions can be...you can rest assured that I will endeavour to make my own patterns crystal clear!

It's knitted in Sirdar Tweedie Chunky, which is a lovely alpaca/wool/acrylic blend, now sadly discontinued. It comes in these bold colours, as well as natural shades of which I also have enough to do something lovely - but that will be for me! When I showed the blanket to friends I was told that it was 'quite mediaeval' by one, it was very 'Harry Potter' by another (the four house colours are all there) but my favourite comment was, "You do know you've got all the federation uniform colours there, don't you?", which as a not-so-closet Trekkie pleased me greatly!

The cables come from my various books and are all my favourites. Although the blanket I have in mind for the natural shades will bring together all my favourite leaf and tree themed cables. But I WILL NOT START IT until I have typed up some of my patterns...

The original hat

Currently on the needles is one of my owl hats. This is another pattern I need to write up, but this one is a priority as it's one of the patterns I'd like to offer as a kit. It started life as a gift for my mother-in-law, but with a few modifications and tweaks it's become a popular seller at her local bird of prey sanctuary. Last year I knitted sixteen - sixteen - of them in four different shades and two different sizes for the shop, I was knitting them in my sleep by the time I'd finished! Fortunately, with one thing and another, it's been a while since I knitted one so I no longer grimace at the prospect. I'm working one up in each size so I can work out how much yarn I need in the kits; I shall calculate this by the scientific (...) method of weighing the ball of yarn, knitting the hat, then weighing it again so I know how many grams I've used.
The design works best in natural or tweedy shades and the eyes, although crystal on the original, look great when made with golden sequins and beads. So if you love owls, keep your eyes open - this one will be on the site soon!

Welcome to White Dragon Designs!

Like the title says - welcome!

This is The Dragon Scrolls, our blog, which will keep you up to date with what's happening at White Dragon Designs - workshop and course dates and events, new patterns and whatever is going on in The Weyr.

Thank you to everyone who has already visited and liked/shared on facebook, the support I've had for the decisions I've made has been great. If you look at the bottom of the sidebar on the website, there are share buttons for Twitter, facebook and Pinterest, so feel free to spread the word!

So what's going on at the moment? Well, there are several free patterns for you to download here and here. Please do have a look at our copyright statement and information page - there's nothing scary on there, I promise!

At the bottom of the Mitts & Wrist Warmers page there is a little gallery of pictures of mitts I've designed but have yet to write the patterns for. Whilst I love knitting and designing, I'm less enthusiastic about writing up the patterns as it takes quite some time and feels like homework. I'm hoping that putting the photos there will prod my conscience enough to make me translate the hieroglyphic scribble which passes as my pattern notes into something people a) can decipher without a degree in cryptography and/or an hallucinogen, b) can follow and work from sufficiently easily to recreate an item approximating the original and c) can use without excessive swearing and/or developing a migraine. I've made a sign for the door:

and I've also invested in some software which should make life easier. I just have to sit down and do it. Today I actually did housework in preference. However, I do want to share my designs with you all so I will just have to bring some of the determination I'm capable of mustering when trying to avoid doing something to bear on actually doing it and get it done.

I also have my first students this week, which will be exciting. They know they are sort of guinea-pigs but I'm really looking forward to it. I'm also in tentative negotiations with a local college about providing some workshops and tuition - more information on that as it develops.

The Hoard, the website's shop, will be open for business soon - I'm hoping to get items listed on there in the next few weeks made by both myself and other crafters, so keep checking back.

There are a few events coming up such as Knit in Public Day on June 21st - we haven't quite decided what we're doing yet but we'll be doing something so as soon as plans are finalised I'll post about it. As we come into summer there will also be more craft fairs and when we have a stall we'll also run mini learn-to-knit drop-in sessions so it would be lovely to see you there!

Any questions, comments, feedback, suggestions and requests are welcome - use the contact page and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Many thanks once again for visiting - come again soon!