GranaryKnits

Hello, and thank you for visiting my Etsy store. My name is Sue, and I love knitting! I knit anything and everything, but my passion is lace knitting and stranded colourwork (Fairisle, for instance).

I have always been a maker, ever since I was little and learned to knit from my grandmother and mother. After knitting came dressmaking, crochet, embroidery, needlepoint, jewellery, but always I kept coming back to knitting.

When I first started knitting lace patterns, five or six years ago, I found that I needed a way to keep track of pattern repeats to prevent myself from making mistakes. At first, I did this using scraps of different coloured yarn, but quickly found that these were cumbersome to use, and all too often got caught up and knitted into the garment! Next, I tried shop-bought, mass-produced, markers, but found that these snagged on the fine lace or 4ply yarn and I spent more time trying to unsnag them than I did knitting. When I examined these markers closely, I saw that the jump rings used, both the connecting rings and the larger marker ring itself, were open rings, and in use were easily bent or pulled open, causing the gap to widen and consequently snag on the yarn. My husband, an electronics geek, suggested he solder the gap closed with his fine soldering iron, and when I saw how effective this simple solution was in curing my problem, I got him to teach me the fine art of soldering so that I could improve all of my stitch markers!

I now use markers in virtually all of my knitting projects; to mark the beginning of a round when knitting a hat or socks or mittens in the round; to mark pattern repeats in lace and Fairisle knitting; to mark the division between front, sleeve, back, sleeve, front in a top-down sweater or cardigan. I like the feel of the markers in my hand, they add to the rhythm of the process as they pass from one needle to the other, and the gentle sound that they make as I knit is comforting.

I make my stitch markers from 1mm wire that maintains its shape in use. Many stitch markers are not soldered closed, so that the yarn is easily snagged; my stitch markers are soldered so that there is no gap in the ring to snag your yarn. I use 0.6mm or 0.8mm wire to make the small jump rings, and 1mm wire to make the large marker rings. The wire I use is silver plated copper wire, which is resilient and hard wearing. The solder I use is standard lead-free solder, with a small percentage of silver included.

My first homemade stitch markers were charms and beads recycled from old earrings and bracelets, the sort of dress jewellery that, once it was out-of-date, would have gone into landfill. I still love making old useless items into functioning and unique stitch markers and examples of these can be seen in my shop, alongside the new charms and beads.

I hope that you will enjoy browsing my shop, and that you will find something to add colour and sparkle to your knitting and crochet!