March

Two weeks into March, a month which seems to be full of uncertainities due to the spread of the Coronovirus across Europe and life not being quite so normal (whatever normality was!).  So whether    the places or plans take place or not will be doubtful so plan B will be to stay at home and sew, knit or crochet!

While waiting for the computer to do its stuff before I could write this post this afternoon I made a bowl.  I have some 'fabric twine' made a few months ago and rather than have it hanging around in a ball I made it into a bowl by using the widest zigzag stitch on my machine.  I did start off in the wrong direction, but soon corrected that.  I shortened the length on the top of the bowl and went around twice to make the top firmer.  Its a way of using up the long narrow strips of fabric.

Talking of using up things I had a collection of hexagons from a mini charm pack that I bought year before last from the Bramble Patch.  The collection was called Grand Canal inspired by Venice and when I took part in the 100 hexagons 100 days last year I included some of the hexagons from this collection.  One morning a couple of weeks ago I joined them up and quilted into a piece to make a pouch.

Last month I finished the Dahlia crochet blanket and decided I would make a mini blanket with the yarn that was left.  I had to amend the colour choices for the border as I didn't have enough of one of the colours, but quite please how it's turned out.

This is using the repeating stripe pattern and reversing the colour order from the dark yarn colour in the middle.  The instructions are of Attic 24's website here .  The colour order is somewhere on the site but I can't find it, so the link is to the general Dahlia Blanket CAL.  It is just 23.5" x 21" but it is small enough to drape over Flo's lap in the car (as children can't wear coats strapped in the car seat) but its also big enough to wrap a teddy or dolly.  She loves the colours or the big blanket so this mini one will go down well.

I went to West Country Embroiderers twice last week, one was the normal meeting and second later in the week was a Dorset gathering.  At the group meeting local embroiderer Liz Watt demonstated stump work, which I'd not tried before and made this seahorse.

 Initially when I got home I couldn't find the instructions, so I carried on the next day making up the scissor case while things were still fresh in my brain!

I added some extra stitching and a beady eye on the seahorse and on the back I made a starfish, a bit squiffy but you get the idea.  By the time it got to Dorset Day on the Wednesday other ladies were impressed I got to finishing!

So this coming week with more restrictions on movement I hope I can sew up the red cardigan that I've finished knitting, I've also got a fabric pack to make up a Linus quilt and to knit a few baby hats.  We hope the weather will be better to get out into the garden which needs a really good tidy up.  Still keeping busy.