Scarf love

I am in love with my new crochet scarf, made in only a few evenings work this week.

I finished it last night. The pattern is a peephole chevron stitch from a stitch directory. This was a spur of the moment make really. Lately I have seen some lovely crochet shawls and scarves on Pinterest, and felt inspired to have a go at one myself. Not feeling quite brave enough to attempt some of the more complicated designs I have seen I decided to try something simple, but pretty instead. Then I remembered that I had about 4 balls of grey pure wool 4 ply lurking in my stash. I ran upstairs, dug out the yarn, found a suitable hook (I decided to use a 4mm hook as I wanted the stitches to be quite open, and the scarf to be drapey and soft) and was soon happily ensconced on the sofa, hooking away.

How do you like it? I think maybe it needs a little edging on the sides just to finish it off, perhaps in a contrasting colour, as I have used up all the grey I had.

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My orchid has developed 4 new buds over the last month or so, and one of them opened this week.

I'm impressed that this plant seems to be surviving so well - it was a birthday present at the end of November, and according to the tag was only supposed to last 2 months. I've now had it for 4 months to the day almost, and haven't done anything but giving the occassional watering. It seems happy enough!

I'm heading off to spend Easter weekend with S later today, so I'll see you all in April. I hope you have a great weekend whatever you do!

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Pastel dreams

Some lovely glass tumblers and bowls I acquired on a little shopping trip this week. 

At least I can have spring colours inside even though there is only snow outside.  Jet stream where are you? !

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New projects

There has been less progress on my Cathedral Blanket than I would have liked since my last post. This is due to my having miscalculated on the amount of yarn I would need for my edging and seaming! So I've had to stop, tantalisingly close to the finish line - only inches left on the final row of edging! You can just about see how close I am in the photo below.

Hopefully I can get an extra ball of black yarn soon and finish this off by next week.

As I'm sure you guessed, just because I had to stop working on the blanket, it doesn't mean I had to stop crocheting! After a brief period of afghan-induced ennui (i.e. me feeling really tired for one evening and unable to contemplate the starting of a new project while in the grips of yarn-deficiency) I soon dug some more DK out of my stash and started working on not one, but 2 new projects.

The first is to be another blanket (yes, I know another blanket - after I said I wouldn't!) using various pastel shades that I have been collecting recently. The colours are:

Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK in

Purple 18045

Lilac 18017

Airforce blue 18028

Sublime Extra Fine Merino DK in 

Julep 0307

Sublime Baby Cashmere Merino Silk DK in:

Piglet 001

Vanilla 003

However, I have a horrible feeling that the Debbie Bliss yarn may be about to be discontinued, which would be a shame as it's a lovely yarn. It seems to be reduced or out of stock at all the online retailers I have checked today. If anyone reading this is in the know on that score, let me know!

My second project is a simple crochet scarf using a grey 4 ply wool. More on that next time though!

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Hello again!

It has been a while between posts for me (again), but I'm glad to be back!

Before I say anything else, I want to say hello and welcome to all the new followers who have come to visit in February and March. One of the reasons I started this blog was to try and feel part of a crafting community. 

I don't know many people who have the same level of crochet and knitting obsession that I do, so I really wanted to try and connect with some other like minded people, and there is such an active craft community online that I thought a blog would be a good way to do that.

 Its so great to now have people regularly visiting this blog, and leaving such kind comments. I'm sorry if I don't always reply individually to each comment, its just due to general business rather than anything else. Please be assured that I do still read and value every comment, even if I don't reply.

 I have been beavering away on my blanket - a lot of progress has been made since my last post. I've spent most of the last 2 weeks doing the seaming on this, but I'm nearly there now!

The (brief) flashes of sunshine that have from time to time come through the window while I have been working on this blanket have really highlighted the stained glass effect I think.

Normally when working on a blanket like this, I would have a smaller project on the go simultaneously, so that I can have a little break from the blanket if I need to. However, since I started adding the black seaming to the blanket, I've just found it so absorbing and fun to work on that I haven't wanted to put it down!

I think this may be my favourite blanket yet! Hopefully I will finish it over the weekend, and then be able to share full completed snaps with you!

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Cathedral blanket - progress

Morning (well afternoon now!) and Happy Mothers Day everyone! I am very excited to be able to share with your some snaps of my cathedral blanket!

I have been working away on this for almost 2 weeks now, managing to do at least a couple of squares every night. For days now I have had stacks and stacks of little squares. I haven't been able to start joing them, up which has been a little frustrating, but also sort of exciting too - the anticipation! Because I'm working with scraps and doing diagonal rows, I didn't want to start joing the squares yet, as I don't know how many squares I will have for each colour and therefore what the colour sequence will be for each row going straight across.

I found some scraps of one mid-blue yarn - a Rowan Cashsoft DK, and was able to make 4 squares using that. I knew I had another ball of that somewhere, but thought I may have left it at my boyfriend's place (isn't he nice to put up with my leaving yarn lying around at his flat for weeks on end!). Anyway, this morning I had a burst of inspiration as to where the stray ball might be, rooted through my cupboard in my yarn storage box and lo and behold, there it was, along with some other scraps that will also do nicely for the blanket! 

So I should be able to finish making squares and start joining this week! So excited! Here is the planned arrangement - it may come out a little bugger in the end - I figure I may as well use as many scraps as fit in!

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Spring refurbishment

Last weekend I had a massive clearout of clothes, books and general bric-a-brac. It really felt so good! I also decided that I need to have a spring re-fresh here and started work on that.

My spring re-fresh necessitated some sewing. Regular visitors to this blog will know that I mainly write about knitting and crochet. Over the years I have had a bit of a love-hate relationship with sewing. When I was in primary school, and first learnt to hand sew, I loved it. I loved the order of tiny neat little running stitches, went to a sewing club and made a beanbag frog (sadly he is long gone (along with my childhood!), but trust me, he was gorgeous!).

I then had a long gap where I did not attempt any kind of craft, before picking up knitting again, then learning to crochet, and somewhere in there attempting a little bit of sewing. It was that little bit of sewing in there which caused the hate and frustration! All my cut edges were wonky, my stitches suddenly seemed to look uneven and untidy, the thread would snag and knot so that I had to start over, and frankly it all just seemed to take so long!

However, over the last year or so, with some perseverance I am slowly rediscovering my sewing ability and finally starting to like what I am producing! So, on Sunday, realising I wanted to refresh some of the furnishings and generally perk things up a bit at home with some fresh spring colours, I got sewing!

So, 'enough of this waffle' I hear you cry, 'what did you make?'

Here they are!

 I started slow - just a little cushion cover, using 2 pieces of fabric and a zipper fastening.

Then I moved on to hanging scented hearts - attempted several times over the last few years and responsible for not a little of my previous frustration! I had an epiphany with the construction of these last summer when I bought the book 'All sewn up' by Chloe Owens - I never knew you were supposed to cut notches by the stitches - felt so frustrated that  my little hearts did not go into the correct shape when I turned them right side out. Still, this time I think I have really got the knack!

I've now made 6 of these little cuties in total - I think I am a bit addicted to them! 

So. what's next on the list in my sewing marathon?

2 cushion covers (probably patchworh as I don't think I have single pieces of fabric large enough)

Some little purses of differing sizes

More hearts?

A travel project bag for my crochet at the weekends

A runner for my dressing table

Anything else I can think of before I run out of fabric!

I'm sure I will share the results with you here.

One last thing before I go - I wanted to show you my latest lovely dressing table acquisition - this gorgeous Wedgwood trinket tray

I saw this on eBay - the pattern is 'Angela', for a bargain price. I initially bought this for something to stand candles on, however, when it arrived this morning it looked too gorgeous for that! I think I may have to use it for trinkets and look for something else for the candles!

I so love these delicate little painted illustrations of flowers and butterflies - they are just breathtakingly beautiful!

Until next time.....

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February

February seems to have flown by, much faster than January. I've done a lot of crochet! So much that by the end of February my hand was really aching - it was lucky that I had a few enforced days off from crochet at the end of Feb/start of March.

I seem to have achieved quite a lot, project-wise. A whole throw, most of which was completed in February. This was the Something Pretty throw. Also a stripy wave cushion from a pattern by Nikki Trench. I've felt really pleased with being able to complete both these projects, especially the Something Pretty blanket, as I initially found the pattern hard to understand, and really had to persevere with it! It's a good feeling to practice and skill and find you really are improving in it.

I've also since started a new project, my Cathedral Blanket, more on that soon.

There have been some lovely days weather wise, and some less lovely days. Today, its the 3rd of March already, and the sun is shining after a couple of weeks of cold and grey. It's a very welcome site!

With spring now hopefully just around the corner I have spent quite a lot of this weekend spring cleaning, getting rid of clutter and re-furbishing cushions and things. I'll show you the results of this sometime soon too!

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