Furtling in April

Taking a back step for now and posting about what I've been up to in April.  A lot of You Tube watching, a bit of this and a bit of that and generally pootling around.  These are strange times and even though there's plenty to do its still a case of 'what's next.'

Since the beginning of April I decided to get out a Wool Warehouse bag of yarns left over from previous blanket makes and make another blanket.  This is another Attic 24 pattern called Neat Ripple.  Quite a simple repetitive pattern to crochet which I mainly work at when watching tv of an evening.  I haven't thought about the placement of colours too much and it has used up yarn as I've played 'yarn chicken' a number of times, so as long as the yarn weighs at least 12g its going in the blanket.

After hibernating my latest sock knitting for a bit I suddenly got the urge to finish the first sock and am now of the second.  I've now got up to the heel on the second one.  The yarn I bought from Crafternoon Treats at Yarndale and the turquoise yarn is West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply.

I've made a postcard on the theme of butterflies and dragonflies and made this card with an appliqué butterfly and an organza one which I attached by Bondawebbing the body.  The two layers of organza were Bondawebbed together and held with some stitching to emphasise the wings.  The postcard was to be sent in an envelope (I used a clear envelope). It was sent week before last in a swap organised by UKQU postcard swaps.

I then had this lovely card from Jo in Norfolk.

I found that there was a small postcard sized piece of Kantha stitching with some threads so decided that I would finish that off.  Not sure what my thinking was behind that piece but its no longer a UFO now but not sure what to do with it now.

Another little project was to cover my sewing chair.  Its a boring typist chair so I decided to recover it.

The plastic base and seat back were flexible so it was a case of pushing the raw edges into them with a flat head screwdriver.  It only took an hour to do.  It's just standard patchwork cotton and perhaps it might be more substantial with upholstery fabric, but it does for now and brightens what is a pretty boring chair.

Something different that I did a couple of weeks ago is a Virtual Quilting Retreat.  I'd like to go on another retreat sometime, but they are either booked quickly, too far away or come at the wrong time so this was ideal.  No having to load the car with everything bar the kitchen sink and still having to wonder if you have enough or the right stuff.  Everything is to hand in the comfort of your own home, though it does get a little lonely not having the chatter of other people.  I wrote about it in this post here .   These are what I've made

I love the big project bag which now has some embroidery in it and I've yet to make something of the New York Beauty butterfly.  So a couple of things completely different.  There will be another retreat at the end of May so see what projects will be done in that.

Lastly I contacted a local coordinator for For the Love of Scrubs who has a group if people making scrub bags, masks and ear savers (so the elastic from masks don't go round the ears but around fabric with buttons attached). I had a go at the protectors, both sewn and crocheted

The sewn ones I made up myself as there didn't seem to be a pattern but later I found on Instagram that Wild Daffodil had some crochet instructions so I had a go.  It's on her blog here .

I've made some scrub bags too using up stash of large pieces that I know I won't use.  Sometimes extending some fabric by using calico on the back, but I've now only got little pieces.

And there was a call for child friendly masks for adults to wear for Special Needs pupils so I made a few masks, but there are some real mask making 'ninjas' out there that seem to get loads done, but I figure that lots of a few will make a lot of masks.  Lets see how this goes.

So that was my April and looking forward to May and hope for brighter things.  I will be blogging everyday in May so there will be another about blog post later today.  

Linking up with Little Archies Furtle Around the Blogosphere