Keeping Going in February

 

A crochet blanket is just what I need and I’ve been working the last couple of weeks on another Aria blanket but on a smaller scale.  The original, which was a birthday gift in November for my Mum, after it was finished had over 400 grams of yarn left.   Its not enough for another full size blanket but enough for a small lap sized one,  I loved the colours and the granny squares you see above are the middle ones. 

This where I've got to with the what I had left.

I thought I had finished, but it needs to be longer so I will take the red I used for the outer border off and would add granny stitch rows top and bottom with some of the remaining yarns then redo the border.  This is how much yarn I have left.

So I'll use the larger amounts - Sage, Pistachio, Wisteria and Purple.  The balled up red in the top row is the colour used in the border, so I have plenty of that for re crocheting the border afterwards. Other bits and bobs may go into a scrap blanket.  See how it goes.

A finish for this month has been this little embroidery from a Craftpod kit, which I bought back in the Autumn.

This a a 4” hoop and was worked with one strand of embroidery cotton, so it has taken a while, been left a while, and went back to stitching at the end of January. Its effect is lovely although I wouldn’t attempt anything as small again, with needing lots of light to be able to do it.  There is also a badger to make with felt in the kit and I have sized the pattern up a bit more to be able to make this.  The body and the head are sewn together separately and at the point of joining the two together.

I’ve knitted a hat for myself from a pattern I saw in Let’s Knit, issue 167, on the Readly app.

This is mosaic knitting.  Sort of colourwork but instead of working with two yarns at the same time, it’s working one colour for 2 rows, then the other colour for the following 2 rows and alternating with the unworked stitches being slipped (hope that makes sense). Not tried this process before and it does create a dense fabric which will need blocking. It took 4 days to make and finished it on Wednesday.  As it’s got colder there’s been no time for blocking, so I’ve been wearing it and it’s lovely and warm!  I've used double knit yarn from stash, a lilac colour and a multicolour yarn.  This was a selfie I took (my sister called it a 'hatfie').

A new project that I’ve started this week is a ‘coatigan’ for my daughter Sarah.  It's a King Cole pattern in Aran yarn which I purchased and downloaded from Wool Warehouse.  The darker colours have been difficult to get hold of as they were out of stock on the usual online suppliers, but in the end I found a Claret colour in Deramores and the order came really quickly - ordered last Friday and delivered Monday! 

I started on Monday with the left front and I've got to the armhole shaping so far.  I thought it would take ages but it isn't.  That might be a different matter when I come to work on the back!

So this is what is keeping me busy so far in February and its nearly halfway through the month!