New Year New Starts

On Christmas Eve I started a new cast on which would take me into the New Year.  I saw on Facebook a 'sponsored post' from a company called Knit in a Box, which is a monthly knitting subscription pack and I liked the pattern that was shown on the advert but the past box was no longer available.  I found the pattern was by Stylecraft and from their Ballisima range of patterns and yarn.

A quick search on the Wool Warehouse website and I found the pattern and a different colour of the yarn (the box version was pink and I liked red).  I'd also recently looked at ordering the Dahlia crochet blanket pack (more about that later) so an order was put in and delivered very efficiently!

I wanted to finish a pair of socks I was making so I could start on Christmas Eve.  This is pattern below and I am making the V-neck version (shown on the right).

I think this must be the progress around Christmas

 And the back was finished last night and the left front started.

 I'm surprised how far I've got with this, but as its mostly stocking stitch its easy to do.

A new start is the Dahlia Crochet blanket crochet a long (CAL) and this was in the same Wool Warehouse order.  This is a pattern by Lucy of Attic24 and I wanted to make this blanket but I needed to have a home for it and fortunately my daughter Sarah would like it.

The yarn comes in a net bag (as all the yarn does) and I made a start yesterday while resting to make a tension piece which worked out well.

This is how the blanket looks as at today's date (7 January) as I've now completed row 8 (of 15 rows) of the mixed stripe sequence.

To the left are the yarn bands with the appropriate colours around them as a guide to know what colour I'm working on.