7 :: A Ta-Dah Moment...

Fully deserving of the capitalisation, I think. May I present, in all it's finished glory, My Ripple Blanket.

Looking suitably atmospheric on my bed there! It's been most welcome the last two nights too as I've shivered myself to sleep due to both the sudden drop in temperature and the germs that are rampaging through the house at the moment.

Some thoughts, then. Lucy's pattern is the easiest ripple by far. Trust me, I tried others.  I'm SO VERY GLAD I hooked in the ends as I went along (accompanied by a very small securing knot) as I think I would have lost the will to live had I had to do them all at the end. It felt most decadent to just merrily snip them all off with my scissors.

I'm not sure if I'll ever attempt such a large blanket again. At least not for A Very Long Time.

There are some pretty impressive stats to go with it.

• Each ripple consists of 14 treble crochets and there are 30 ripples per row. That makes 420 stitches per row.
• I crocheted 164 rows, so that makes for 68,880 stitches. 
• I used 65 balls of yarn. There are 116m in each ball. That adds up to 4.69miles of yarn. I'm allowed to switch between metric and imperial because my convertor app lets me ; )

On and off, it has taken me 18 months to complete and felt at times like a mammoth task. But then, I do have a very large bed! I haven't actually measured it but I'm guessing that it's over 6' wide and over 5' long. It's big.

A very big tick off my to-do list.

2 :: grrrr ...

Forgive me for not introducing my Blogging Advent Calendar properly yesterday. Better late than never is always a good attitude in my book. A friend of mine introduced me to a new photography app on my phone in the week and I'm loving this pinhole camera photo so I thought I would use it as a bit of a theme to my posts for this month along with one (or two or three) photos that I have taken using my macro lens. 

I am going to refrain from using bad language here on my blog, but believe me there has been some used this morning in connection with my Ripple blanket. I am on The Last Row and look! I don't have enough yarn. Grrrr! 

I'm feeling so frustrated and am now faced with a dilemma. Do I use a scrap left over from another colour to finish this last little bit and use the change in colour as a reminder that this is the bottom of the blanket? (The chances are that this tiny little portion will never really be seen as it will be tucked in to the bottom of the bed). Or do I track down another ball of wool?

I'm swaying towards using a scrap of the nearest colour so that it is not so noticeable and employing the wabi-sabi aesthetic to the project, embracing the hand-made and all that.

What would you do?

Stitches...

There have been all sorts of different stitches around these parts lately.  Some beautifully soft malabrigo ones on my dpn's--I can feel a knitting phase coming on ...

Remember this? Well, it has been coming along s-l-o-w-l-y, inch by inch, stripe by stripe. Another 14 or 15 inches to go to cover my bed. It is a monster of a blanket and incredibly cosy. I can vouch for this for I am enjoying snuggling under it as I crochet the evenings away.  I hadn't touched it throughout the whole summer and paid for it dearly as quite a few of the colours I am using are now discontinued and it has been a job in itself tracking down odd balls here and there.  There are some pretty impressive stats to go with this blanket which I will finalise on its completion. Miles of yarn, miles!

There are a couple of sewing projects on the go too, which have required some accurate top-stitching.  I find that if I look at the needle as my guide, my stitching seems to go all over the place and so now I have discovered my own trick to fairly neat top-stitching. Not exactly rocket science, but all part of the process of learning!

There's been a new venture in bag-making, with a slight modification of my own due to my preference of a long handle to go over my body rather than a shorter one which invariably falls off my shoulder.

And then there's the stitching that needs to be unpicked and re-done. Sigh.  I'm trying to catch up with the FWQAL and not doing too badly considering how far behind I had fallen.

A finished object...

Another item I can tick off my list of UFO's.

I actually started this cushion last year when I was on holiday in Portugal!  I'm not really sure why I stopped hooking it because I was loving the colour combinations.

It came out of my hibernation a week or so ago and it has been amongst other projects on the worktable.

I took a bit of chance in my method of making it into a cushion and ended up tacking it to a piece of leftover quilt backing so that I wouldn't make a hash of machining it together with the back of the cushion.

The extra bits of the hexagons are just tucked inside and virtually unnoticeable from the front.  Pattern from here.

I like this shape cushion and it is snuggled nicely in amongst the others on the sofa in the conservatory.

I'd like to make two more smaller cushions to replace the original sofa ones at either end but for now, two more projects have taken priority.  More of which soon.

It's a whopper...

You know when I said that doing 2 rows of my ripple blanket a day was a do-able goal?  I don't think I mentioned that the blanket is over six feet wide!  I think, on average, it has taken me about an hour and a quarter to do my daily quota, but I have managed it.  I'm running out of yarn now and so in a couple more days I think I will have to put it back on the back burner until I can buy some more.

I am loving it though.  This was the first time I had actually laid it out on my bed and it is now clear where this blanket is going to live.  My bedroom is completely white so it will add an intense block of colourful snuggliness...

While it's in the WIP pile, there are a couple of other more manageable crochet projects that I'd really like to get done with the yarn I bought ages ago.  Then I'll be ready for winter.

My creative space...

...is all about the ripple.




I have set myself what I consider to be a realistic challenge and that is to do just two rows a day.

Two rows is about an inch, therefore in a month's time, it should have grown thirty one inches.  See?  I'm a maths genius!

More creative spaces here.

Looking the other way...

There is nothing like a project gone wrong to make me get my teeth into another project.  It sits in the other room, taunting me, but I justify the thoughts in my head by making false priorities.  In this case, my last Babette cushion was the lucky winner of my time and affection!  I even had some company while I was mastering my avoidance tactics.

For the back of this one I decided to use all the leftover yarn up and just go with it, changing colour wherever it ended rather than making uniform stripes.  The wide stripes were made from whole balls that I had left.

Even if that piece of yarn only yielded 3 or 4 stitches, I embraced it!

I put my button fastening at the bottom this time so as not to detract from the randomness of the back.

 

So here it is.  I really like this one - it's brighter than the other one.  Or so it seems, maybe that zingy red block at the top right makes it appear brighter.

My sofa is well on its way to being permanently brightened up.  It looks very enticing on a wet, grey day and so I think I may well spend a fair bit of time on it today.  Of course, by just sitting here writing this post I am procrastinating about writing about what I really ought to be working on today. And Blogger has been exceptionally slow in uploading my photos...

I do love this pattern and who knows, one day I may get to find a suitable yarn to make a blanket.  Probably should think about finishing this one first though...

One done, one to go...

I actually managed to finish one Babette cushion and it is brightening up my sofa as I type. 

I'm loving the back almost as much as the front, just as I did with this one.

There is something I find hugely satisfying about chunky treble crochet stripes.

I used some more buttons from my button jar for the closure - nice and chunky like the yarn.

I'm so glad this hasn't gone to waste, I have plans for the other 5 cushions on the sofa.  Oh yes.  Some more crochet and some quilted.  A plan!

Just need to finish off the other one now...

My mind is ticking over  with plans for a Babette-style quilt... more sleepless nights, I fear!

Change of plan...

So, last year I embarked on my biggest crochet project to date.  A Babette Blanket.

As is always the case, I seem to get fixated on a yarn and a pattern and then try and bring them together in the hope that things work out.

This mixture didn't.  I started off enthusiastically, but the bigger the blanket grew, the heavier it became.  And I mean heavy!  So it all got neatly tucked into a basket and slowly became forgotten about.  Then, a few weeks ago, the guilt of having such a lot of yarn potentially going to waste got the better of me and so I refreshed my memory with what I had done so far and as I was laying out all my blocks on the sofa it struck me that this one was the exact size of the big cushions on the sofa!  It was a light bulb moment.  I started to rehash the other blocks (on my Dad's hospital bed!) to make a pair of cushion fronts.

Over the last few weeks, in between quilting, gardening and taking parents out on day trips, I have been crocheting the back of the first cushion using the remainder of the yarn.  I still love the back of the granny square cushion I made No2 last year so that's the path I have been going down for the first one.  But have a slightly different plan for the second one, which is yet to be started.

My plan for the weekend is to get the first one finished and let the big sofa revamp begin!

Uniform...

Kristina and I are doing a skills swap.  We have been talking about it for months.  We've even met on a few occasions to make a start.

Last week we met again and I taught Kristina to crochet.  Our venue was Ginger and White in Hampstead.  (When you see a fish finger sandwich on a menu, it has to ordered.  It was delicious - sorry, no photo!)

Anyway, it seems that a crochet uniform has been unconsciously decided upon...

The hardest part of teaching anyone to crochet is the pesky first row.  You  make your foundation chain quickly and then it just takes ages to do your first row.  It is the worse part of crochet as far as I'm concerned.  After that, the hook just flies...

...I promise!

Bluebird mobile...

At last, I have finished Mary's mobile! It is on its way to the other side of the planet!

There seemed to be a lot of things that prevented me from finishing this project, but it is done and I am glad it is on its way.

It was fun to do - I think the birds are so sweet.  It is made using Debbie Bliss Rialto Aran.

I used Anchor tapestry wool for the little flowers - the selection of colours is huge, so if you're looking for something small and in a particular colour, it's a good option.  I find buying yellow yarn really difficult for some reason...

Here it is hanging in my conservatory.  Bon voyage, bluebirds.

One week, ten things...

• Apologies for not getting round to sharing a bit of borrowed beauty...

...while my parents are staying with me, I have been enjoying the blooms of my Mum's orchids which are residing in my conservatory... there are frilly ones...

...spotty ones...

...yellow ones...

...and white ones.  They seem to be thriving at the moment

• My day at St Mary's went really well.  I would even go as far as saying that I enjoyed it.  I mean, I don't often get the chance to talk about Tom much anymore, so it was more than welcome as far as I'm concerned.  I spoke to my counsellor today and the feed-back she has received was really positive about my contribution to the lecture.  The Registrars were so nice and they asked me lots of questions - some of which were quite challenging.  I'm happy to do it again in spite of feeling absolutely exhausted by the time I got home.

• Better late than never, but I have continued to do my 365 Days project over at Flickr and so here is my mosaic for February.

• I have a new favourite chocolate bar.  It has proved to be elusive, but one of my lovely friends tracked a bar down in Surrey and posted it to me!

• 
  
  I also forgot to mention the craft table we did at an Indulgence evening.  I didn't sell One Single Thing!  Never mind.  We managed to get some dates for proper craft fairs!  I didn't really get round to making that much so I'm not as disappointed as I might have been.  I was surprised that anyone could resist this cute pram toy!

• 
  
  I need to finish hand-quilting Max's quilt.  I'm half way through and would really like to get it done this week as I am impatient to start my next one!

• 
  
  I have discovered Spoonflower.  Dangerous territory.  Believe me.

• Continuing in the forgetful way that has become the norm at the moment, I also forgot to mention the discovery of the most wonderful haberdashery in Frome, Somerset.  I spent a lovely while browsing through fabrics, buttons and trimmings.

• Pip has a new girlfriend.  Meet Daisy...

...she has the most expressive ears!  I have a request to make her a jumper - she's a shivery little thing!  Unfortunately, she is not mine.  She belongs to another of my lovely friends.

• I have almost finished my giveaway amigurumi.  I'm hoping to post it out at the end of the week.