Shiny ✨ New Things

 With all good intentions of using what I’ve got, which I’m doing mainly, sometimes it becomes hard to resist the new stuff. 

The week before last I saw my friend at knitting and natter who is currently making 2 lap blankets following the Canalside CAL by Lucy of Attic 24 and seeing the colours used in real life very quite vibrant.  Thinking about this I thought it lap sized blankets would make a good Christmas present (this Christmas is the intention) so ordered the colour pack from Wool Warehouse. (Even the spellchecker thought ahead of my typing!!).

This is the start so far, only a few rows in.

Not content with that I went to my local yarn shop to get some Aran yarn to try out another crochet project that I’d seen in Inside Crochet magazine, designed by Sam Sabido of a crochet ‘coatigan’ to try a sample to crochet later in the year. The pattern uses Rowan yarn, which is really expensive so I bought other branded acrylic/wool yarn to try out.  I might have a go at this pattern a little later in the year.

Here’s a sample of the crochet which looks quite good.

Whilst in the wool shop I bought this yarn as well, which is acrylic and is called Stylecraft Colour Burst in the shade Catherine Wheel, and thought that Flo would like this one as a jumper using the school jumper pattern again.  I will do a pattern on the front but the back is plain stocking stitch, ideal for taking to knit and natter sessions.  The colours are really pretty and the yarn is really soft.  

So that’s the yarny stuff.  I went to embroidery group on Monday and did the second part of a workshop based on designs for the book Hand-stitched Landscapes and Flowers by Katrina Witten of Rowandean Embroideries.  I remembered that long ago I did a workshop with her through Barnsley Creative Embroiderers with a little kit from which I made this little piece. It’s only 3” x 4”.

This time I made a hydrangea but I didn’t want a plain background so I used this dotty one which I think was a mistake. It is much bigger than I wanted so I’m not sure how to display this.  I would have like to have made something a bit smaller. Having got the inspiration, may try a smaller size. 

However I thought the book was worth exploring so I ordered it from World of Books and it came yesterday.  The condition was described as good, but it looked like new!

But I am continuing to crack on with some old stuff, which I’ll share soon.