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.

6 :: Petersham goodies...

Last week (or was it the one before that even? They are flying by, so who knows?) I was taken out for a belated celebratory lunch by a friend.  My choice of venue, so to Petersham Nurseries it was.

My friend had never been there and I managed to find our way there by car without my trusty navigator directing me! As I suspected, it was wonderfully Christmassy and all very tempting.  The orange decorations in my blog header were top of my wanties list. I decided though, to buy the ingredients to brighten up the pots outside the front door. The barrows at the entrance to the nursery are very inspirational and so I picked three of the best.

I'm hoping they will last right through until I change the pots for my spring tulips. I love the silvery foliage on the left and the berries are fabulously plump.

I also bought a little potted Christmas tree which is planted up and on my back door step with lights twinkling through it. My first bit of festive  decorating done! I'm with Nina on the little by little approach.

5 :: playing with fabric...

A progress post today. I didn't make a mad decision to make a whole load of Christmas presents this year as I knew from experience that it just stresses me out.  There are just a couple of things instead. This is what is on the wall at the moment awaiting completion:

The front of a potholder, bottom left and one block of another potholder, top left. Inspired by this pin.

The blocks on the right are for a festive table runner for my Christmas table. Now I have my final numbers (20!) I know how long I've got to make it. It all depended on whether I needed one or two additional leaves in my table, you see.

Today I have woken up full of No2's cold (yeah, I'll blame him!) and a 6 chapter attachment from my copy-editor (eeeek!) to go through. Who knew that a document with 'track changes' looked so scary? What to do? Carry on sewing or hunker down and cringe at my punctuation?

4 :: Looking forward...

It's decision time here. The talk of late has been one of leaving school next summer and continuing No2's education at a college as school has never been his favourite place.

Suddenly, last week, that all changed.  He came home with the prospectus and informed me that he had chosen his subjects and would be staying on a his current school.

It felt like he grew up before my very eyes.  That evening we went to the 6th Form Forum and I have to confess to being mightily impressed.  So tomorrow we will be filling out the online application and then sitting back to see if he can get his grades. (Predictions are all very encouraging).

3 :: Toast

Having admired Nancy's wrist warmers from both her blog and in real life I thought it was about time I had a pair of my very own.  They are a satisfyingly quick knit.

I had a ball of Malabrigo worsted yarn in 'Hollyhock' in my stash so it was just a question of choosing a colour to go with it.  The grey shade is Polar Morn and has a wonderful pinky tinge to it in places so I think it complements the Hollyhock perfectly.

This yarn is so beautifully soft and the stitch definition is a dream (to me). Pattern here.

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?

1 :: paperwhites ...

In spite of carefully diarising when to plant my paperwhite bulbs so that they would flower at Christmas, this crazy weather made them flower four weeks early! In fact, they only took two weeks from planting to flowering.

Their scent fills the downstairs of the house and seems to be at its strongest in the afternoon when it is just starting to get dark.

Today, I took delivery of another batch which I think I will plant just a few days before Christmas Day so that I can something lovely to look forward to in the New Year.