A Finish!

My Cosy Stripe blanket was finished yesterday evening and has taken me nearly 2 months to complete, having started on 1st March.  To recap, this was a yarn and pattern pack from Wool Warehouse with the pattern designed by Lucy of Attic 24. The yarn is Stylecraft Special acrylic double knit. The blanket has a four row pattern consisting of 2 rows of continuous trebles and 2 rows of Granny treble clusters.  Colours, of which there were 15 were changed every 2 rows.  I didn't do all 90 colour changes as instructed in the pattern but stopped at 75 instead, which was large enough for me.

This was the first few rows.

The border came next and the photo above shows the first border row.  I had to change colour choice from the pattern and used Khaki as the Copper didn't go all the way around the blanket.  I kept to the colours for the second and third rows, but changed again for the fourth and final border and chose the lighter Lime colour instead of Willow, which had a slightly yellow tone to it.

I'm really pleased how it's turned out. It was certainly lovely and warm working on this while it was draped over my lap and its certainly colourful.

Last week I bought another yarn pack from Wool Warehouse, this time I've got some Scheepjes yarn in preparation for a new Crochet a Long (CAL) in Crochet Now magazine designed by Sandra Paul, Cherry Heart which starts next month.

I Didn't Think There Was Much to Report....

April has been a busy month as I've been working full time because of Tax Year End and a shorter working month due to the Easter holidays falling in the middle so there has been a lot of extra work.  Its nice to have a few days off for the Easter holidays and catching up with things at home and with family.  It'll be our son Jamie's birthday on Sunday so there will be a family gathering at his house.

So far I've continued crocheting of an evening so my Cosy blanket continues to grow.  I'm going to do just a few more rows until I reach colour change 70 (or 140 rows) and will leave it at that.  It should have 90 colour changes (180 rows) but I think it might be just too big. There will be all those ends to finish off and then to start on the border rows, of which there are 3.  Finish by the end of the month? I hope so.

The Dolly Dress Up quilt is coming along nicely.  I finished of hand quilting the last Dresden plate block and cut out and joined the sashing strips for front and back.  The blocks are joined at the front but the doubled over strips sewn on the back have to be slip stitched in place, which I've yet to do.

I've done a couple of little bits and pieces to use up stuff.  I have, what I think, is quite a lot of crafty stuff and when I went to a local table top sale where people were selling their excess fabric and notions and not selling that much I came to the conclusion the only to go "let go" was to make things.  I am trying to use up stash and other bits that are lingering and make us of them

First off I have some small "lobster claw" clasps in my bead and findings box.   I've used one before with a charm to put on the zip of a pouch but haven't done this with others.  I'd recently bought some silver metal charms in Hobbycraft and made this into small clips to put on zips then found that crocheters use these as stitch markers.  Very handy. I might use the Russian dolly and heart ones for myself as markers and whats left will go on some pouches.

I also came across some samples of machine embroidery which I didn't know what to do with.  I sold the embroidery machine last year as I found it really wasn't for me.  I found they fitted some wooden embroidery hoops in my stash.  So framed and backed with some felt these will do for a charity stall to help raise funds and uses up stuff. I think its a good used for some stitching which would be shame to dump in the bin!

I came across and article in the Quilters' Guild regional newsletter that there was a regional challenge for the Miniature section of the Guild asking for 12" wide x 6" high mini quilts.  I had some small pieces of hand dyed fabrics which I bought at the Quilters' Guild conference a couple of years ago.  I had a go at Mondrian style colour blocks with the coloured pieces with white and black.  It didn't take too long to do and machine quilted with repeated lines so it looks quite modern.  I will have to contact the lady coordinating this challenge to see if this is acceptable.

I hope you all have an enjoyable Easter.  Being the nature of weekends it'll go just as quick as normal weekends!

Knitting and Crochet

I don't quite know when it happened but last year I started to take up crochet although I have been following a few crochet blogs for some time. I found a crochet-a-long in Crochet Now magazine and although I started its not been progressed as I keep losing the number of stitches in each row. I may go back to this later.

I was also taken with making crochet sheep from a Yarndale pattern designed by Lucy of Attic 24 and made not one but two. Keeping the purple one and the turquoise one went to Yarndale.

Then another, knitted this time, sheep.

Then of course there's been the knitted clowns.

They were fun to make and I've shared progress on the blog and Instagram about these. They have their new homes with my granddaughters in Sussex.

But this is was in working on now. I bought the yarn pack back in January and because Godfrey Gadabout was nearly finished I started the Cozy blanket on 1st March and at 31st March this a is where I've got to

It is big and I've got nearly two thirds done. The cozy blanket has 15 colours of Stylecraft Special acrylic yarn and the colour changes are every two rows and it is lovely and colourful and so easy to pick up and work a few rows of and evening while watching the television. Even watching a You Tube video yesterday morning I could also crochet another row and here's a photo a posted yesterday on Instagram 

Just love the colours.

Back at Christmas when David and I returned home from Cornwall we stopped in a town in Devon for lunch and it was right by a wool shop. One of the yarns a bought was a sock yarn by West Yorkshire Spinners. As the blanket nears the end I will be starting on a pair of socks next.  I have mixed fortunes with making socks so I had a look at Winwick Mum's blog who has instructions on sock making and has published a sock book, she suggested using a small circular needle however enquiring at a wool shop in Dorchester said about using larger circulars using magic loop.  Going to You Tube I found a video by Knitting Expat which demonstrates that and also how to knit two socks at a time.  Oh dear looks like I've gone down another rabbit hole as this is what I've been practising this afternoon. This is not the yarn I will be using but some double knitting yarn from my stash.

So as well as the sewing, knitting and crochet as now become a new obsession.  Keeping my busy!

Finish A Long Quarter 2

It comes as no surprise that I will carry on the things I didn't finish from the last quarter, which are:

1 Dolly Dress Up quilt - I just have one last block to hand quilt, which I will finish this month. The remaining blocks but one have been trimmed ready to be sashed. I hope for a finish by the end of this quarter.

2. Frivols quilt.  I started machine quilting and left it so I hope I can get on with continuing to quilt it.

3 Hexies.  Hmmm, must get on and progress this to make a table centre.

In addition to these I have to add

4  The Cozy Blanket, a crochet blanket from a pack of yarn designed by Lucy of Attic 24 I started this on 1 March and is nearly 2/3 reds in length.  Obviously I will have borders to crochet on too so probably about half done.

This photo was taken on Friday with it draped over an armchair.

5 Disappearing nine patch quilt.  I started this week before last and using up a few children's prints as a large nine patch. I've started machine quilting but not added any further quilting. This quilt will go to The local Project Linus.

Think that's all for now. There will be other things along the way I'm sure, as I've posted about other smaller items during the last quarter.

This post will be linked to FAL 2017.