An April Furtle

 Another whole month gone and where to??  It’ll be 1st May tomorrow so I think it’s a time to round up what I’ve been up to this month.  

I’ve been knitting (and still am) and finished a cardigan for Cecily and another pair of socks.  Not quite finished Sarah’s cardigan as the sewing up has been a problem, but I will get it done.

I loved this Sirdar pattern with the Stylecraft yarn.  Mustard seems to be a popular colour at the moment and this shade, Mellow Yellow, was really lovely.

I made these toe up socks from The Knitter magazine, which, once I got the hang of the pattern was really lovely to work on.  I wrote about this in my last post but I learnt about using short row shaping to create the toes which I’d not done before.  Another new skill to add to my knitting ‘tool kit’.

I’m on another knitting project from A Year of Techniques book and making Alex the Mouse.  This involves another new to me technique called Pinhole Cast on, which is used for the nose and legs. With some colourwork.  This is how far I’ve got. 

The main part, head and body took 3 days and then I’ve been working on the plain parts like ear backs, an i-cord tail, and an arm, the ear fronts have colourwork and the legs.  A second arm is in progress (no, he’s not going to be a one armed mouse!). There are projects on Ravelry  to see.  It’s another small project to extend my knitting skills in between making larger items.

Another little item that I’ve made is this little mandala mat, which I gave to a friend of mine as a belated birthday present. I love this pattern (by Sew Happy Creative and have fun choosing the colours for each round as I go.  It’s made in Rico cotton.

As for sewing I knocked one quilt off Quarter 2 of the 2021 Finish a Long. I bought fleece backing from Seahorse Quilting and used a wavy stitch to quilt.  I found this orangey-yellow fabric in my stash to make the binding. Yay for finishes.

Some blocks for April’s Siblings Together bee were made and I loved playing with the arrangements for the photos.

And this month saw the decoration of the dining room.  Well, while in lockdown thought we might as well use the time to get that done as the room hasn’t been decorated for about 12/13 years we think.

I was at last able to get a haircut.  I don’t like going to the hairdressers so nothing fancy, just a wet cut.  My hair is so fine it dries quickly so it doesn’t take long.  But I feel much better for it. 

Last but not least.  Since I retired 3 years ago, I started to go to a Knit and Natter group at the cafe in the locality where I live. One of the ladies there, I knew from the quilt group, so I’d known her, but not closely, for a number of years.  She’d began to show signs of dementia but kept going, and knitting little teddies for local RNLI charity because she knew the pattern so well.  She died a few weeks ago so I knitted a teddy in her memory as that’s how I remember her.

After such sad news, we learned another knit and natter lady became a granny for the first time!

So April has been an eventful month, to say the least.  Here’s looking forward to May. Joining in Mini Archies Furtle Around the Blogosphere.

Revised List, Finishes and Acquisitions

 Before the 8th April, I had to list outstanding items on my Finish A Long list and I also updated the list on my sidebar for the next quarter, though not much has changed apart from the completed Sew 4 The Soul book and the purple cardigan.  There has been recent action on the Kingfisher Quilt (see the March Furtle post) with just 11 of the border hexagon clusters left to quilt around.  I had found in my stash a half metre piece of a neutral fabric which is just enough for binding,  so it’s looking as though the end is nearly in sight.

Another quilt on the list is the Scrapbusting 2 quilt. This will have a fleece backing, so it won’t be a ‘proper’ quilt.  I bought the fleece this afternoon from Seahorse Quilting as non essential shops have been open for just over a week.

I’m working on Sarah’s cardigan and last night picked up stitches on one front.  Counting up I required 232 stitches and used 2 circular needles to do this.  I did 233 stitches - 1 stitch extra - which I though was not bad, so I’ve managed to lose that stitch. The top circular is a bit old and is very curly, but using two needles was the easiest way to spread the stitches.  This is the right front that I’m working on here so there are buttonholes on the top patterned bit. So that’ll be the more complicated band out of the way.

I have a couple of knitting finishes. Cecily’s cardigan was finished last week as I was at last able to get some buttons.  I was pleased how that turned out and really loved the colour.  This is a Sirdar pattern and the yarn used is Stylecraft Bambino in Mellow Yellow.

A second finish was my Alder socks.  The pattern was in the Knitter, issue 161, and designed by Helen Kurtz.  There is the addition of beads at the top of the socks, but decided to leave those out.  They are knitted in West Yorkshire Spinners Signature yarn in Foxglove (patterned) and Honeysuckle (plain) for heels, toes and cuffs. It is a toe up sock with short row toes.  

As for the acquisitions I treated myself to more West Yorkshire Spinners yarn specially made for Yarndale as I loved the colours of the Barbara (left) and added the Hope yarn (right) to my order. The project pouch has Barbara sheep on it. Not sure what I’m going to make with these yarns yet.  Watch this space....

As the non essential shops are open I went to Wimborne on Saturday afternoon and it was nice to have a mooch in the shops, even though you’re very aware of having wear a mask, sanitise hands and keep distance as much as possible, doesn’t make the experience as pleasurable but it’s a start.  I bought myself a couple of tops in Seasalt including this lovely shirt with paint tubes! Haven’t bought new clothes in a while.

I’m now looking forward to next week and a good haircut - not usually something I look forward too, but after lockdown is definitely needed! 

April Musings

 

I used this picture of some of the blocks I made last month.  I loved these colours so it seemed a good image to use.

The beginning of April saw us decorating the dining room, which is the last room in the house to be decorated since our return from Yorkshire over 10 years ago.  I reckoned it had last been decorated about 13 years ago so the previous wallpaper has lasted well.  We saw a wallpaper we liked at B&Q but when David went to buy it was out of stock, so we bought a similar design at Homebase instead. The old wallpaper was stripped on Friday, and new wallpaper on Sunday. 

We’re just putting everything back together as the books from bookshelves were still scattered around the living room, to be sorted before being put back on the shelves. Pictures have now been put on the walls, but less cluttered than before.

Here are a few of the flowering plants in the garden and it was good to see signs of spring.

Some plants are growing in the greenhouse - sweet peas, tomatoes, pelargoniums grown on from last year. The temperatures go from cold to normal so not reliable enough to put any plants out.

The non essential shops start opening from 12 April (next Monday) for the first time since before Christmas.  It’ll be good to see different shops from the supermarkets.  I’m also looking forward to having my haircut towards the end of the month.

A March Furtle

 With the clocks going forward from last Sunday and being able to see people outdoors from Monday, by today I’m feeling a bit tired having been out and about.  After these weeks of lockdown I’m not used to it! But it has been great to catch up with some family and friends.  I think it was a shock to my car being used everyday this week after some weeks when it’s hardly turned a wheel!!

This month has seen a lot of progress on a quilt that’s been hibernating for long enough (it has been on my Finish A Long list for at least 2 years). This is the Kingfisher Quilt, a design by Jodi of Tales of Cloth , hexie ‘flowers’ on low volume diamond shapes.

I’ve now hand quilted around the 'flowers' and quilting around the borders is in progress.  Just by doing the quilting bit by bit I’ve pleased with the progress I’ve made with this but I’m not quite sure what I’m going to use for binding.  More than likely I won’t be able to get the grey fabric on the border and there isn't any in my stash, so while I’m quilting I’ll have to think of how I’ll deal with that.  There may be some auditioning of fabric or maybe an online purchase if I see the right fabric. No hurry (yet).

I haven’t don’t much other stitching apart from making blocks for Siblings Together, which I wrote about here. I like making blocks, it’s the best bit of making quilts for me.

Knitting is still going ok with Sarah’s cardigan as I’ve joined the front to the back at the shoulders to make the ribbed collar, which is quite deep and took a good few days to do and I wasn’t sure it was draping well.  However looking at the pattern part of the front bands have stitches picked up on the collar so it may pull the ribbing out, so a little think to see if that works..

In between working on that I’m also making a cardigan for my youngest granddaughter, Cecily.  Her Mum wanted this in mustard, and I bought some Stylecraft Bambino in Mellow Yellow.  I've already knitted the back, fronts and today (1st April) I finished a sleeve during the knit and natter Zoom meeting.

The pattern is Sirdar 4493, which goes in sizes from newborn up to 7 years. which has a shorter cardigan (which I'm making here) or a longer 'coatigan'.  Its a good pattern with a fair bit of detail and the yarn is lovely to knit with.  The garter rows at the beginning of the pieces curl up a bit but I hope a little steam blocking might help uncurling.

Not content with these two knitting projects, I made a start on some socks.  These are toe up socks but using a provisional cast on, which I’ve not done before and wondered how that worked, but followed the instructions and it went quite well on the first sock that I started.  This is a pattern from The Knitter by Helen Kurtz and yarn I've used is West Yorkshire Spinners in Honeysuckle and Foxglove.  The second picture below is an photo from the magazine

I’ve still got plenty to keep me busy!

Joining in this month with Mini Archie's Furtle Around the Blogosphere.