Knitted Lanyards #NettieandherNeedles

Today has been a relatively calm day.  A day in which we’ve watched and heard the rain and I’ve thought how fortunate that we didn’t have to venture out (although Hubbie will now look over and scowl, because he did!)

I’ve mentioned in my Word of the Week post how rediscovering just how relaxing a bit of crafting can be and this last week I’ve been concentrating on little, quick projects to keep the momentum going.  It’s portable too, as long as you have a big enough bag, I ramped the embarrassment factor right up for T when we went to Windsor and I clickety-clacked away discretely on the train.

  
My inspiration came from the magazine above, I haven’t bought one of these for years and the free (yes, I know the hefty price of the magazine covers them) gifts on the cover were great too.

I bought it because I don’t currently know how to crochet anything beyond wriggly worms and I love anything to do with peacocks, so the crochet peacock appealed as something I can aspire to.  What I didn’t realise was that there would be another pattern in there that would be just the job for little end of term gifts for D’s teachers.

  
Knitted lanyards! Most people wear them these days and I figured that D could choose some bright colours and we’d customise for each person.

Ella Austin designed the pattern and it really couldn’t be simpler (needle size 4.5mm and I used three different coloured yarns for each):

* Using your first yarn, cast on 128 stitches and knit one row.

* Change to your second colour and knit two rows.

* Change to your third colour and knit one row, then cast off all stitches.

And that’s all there is to it.  It’s then a case of threading the lanyard through a key ring and securing the ends to make a long loop.  Sew a few stitches either side of the key ring to hold it in place, as I used three different colours, I stitched the middle.

  
In the picture above, you’ll also see flowers, having speeded through the lanyards I decided to customise and found this great knitted flower tutorial from mackandmabel. D helped me choose complementary flower colours and they were mega easy to do, once I’d got the hang of it.

   
 
The most fiddly part of it all was the sewing together and making sure all the ends were sewn in and neatened off, but they look pretty good, don’t they?

D’s teachers loved them and I made one for the school nurse that gives D her injections too.

I know it’s not an expensive box of biscuits or chocolates but, as D loves flowers so much, it felt like something nice and personal to say “thank you” for taking care of our D.

She was overjoyed to see some of her teachers wearing them too, which is just as well because the one I’m wearing above nearly didn’t make it into school …. I do have a “bit” of a love of all things purple after all!

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