So tired!

I’m really looking forward to next year, at some point during which I am DETERMINED to go on a holiday which involves no shopping, cooking or cleaning, and lots of idleness, lolling about and doing very little (in between sumptuous meals prepared by someone other than myself or GG).

This summer seems to have been very tiring. OK, it took a fair bit of work to get the flat ready to put on the market, but that’s about all I’ve been busy with. Since Thursday evening, I’ve had about one evening’s worth of work to do to finish a scarf which I’m desperate to finish so that I can begin another pattern that’s fermenting in my brain, but I just can’t summon the energy. I’m a quarter of the way through that one evening’s worth of work, but it’s taken me three days! I’ve made some jam, visited family, been on an underwear shopping mercy mission with a good friend and looked for new houses on the internet, and now I’m all exhausted again!

Still, I’ve nothing left to do for the evening. Three hours or so until bedtime. I’m thinking that a few episodes of Bones would be a very good idea, and a couple of solid hours on the scarf should see me very much nearer to the end of it than I am now. I’m just longing to show it to you!

Ho hum, I’ll not get anywhere by staying here, so I’ll be offski!

Toodlebye!

I never knew lace could kill…

…but I think this shawl might just about do for me by the time I’m done with the Ravelympics project I’ve picked out. I think the yarn is cursed. Or possibly the needles. Or maybe it’s just me.

This is the yarn.

Looks innocuous enough, doesn’t it? Springlike, light, pretty. Well, you’re wrong. There’s evil in that yarn. But the only cure is for me to get the shawl finished and delivered to it’s rightful owner. I started this pattern last April, quickly discovered that it would drive me mad and frogged it. I rewound the ball of yarn, found a lovely crochet pattern, dug out the crochet hook and made a start. I got to this

before discovering the inherent evil in this mohair. I loved the pattern and was really enjoying crocheting it up, but the ball of yarn was magically shrinking in front of my eyes. At the rate it was disappearing, I might just manage a nice cushion cover with this pattern, but there was no way I was getting a full length wrap. So, back to plan A. I frogged it (again), and cast on to knit the original pattern. I managed 18 rows before giving in to the despair and leaving it in the bag for three months. But I am determined this thing will not beat me! There are 22 sets of 16 rows to knit (each 16 rows makes one pattern repeat) and I WILL DO THIS BY THE END OF THE WINTER OLYMPICS! I may need some quiet time in a padded room by then…but that’s a whole other concern. So far I’ve knitted six of those twenty two pattern repeats. I’m aiming at another two today, after which I will only need to aim at one a day. Which is more than enough to test my patience, my temper and my sanity.

**I would like to point out that the yarn itself is very nice. It’s a 2ply (thin, for non-knitters!) kid mohair (fluffy, for non-yarnies!) yarn, and feels lovely to work with. It’s just so hard to see where all the stitches are, given the inherent fluffy factor. However, I’m trying to convince myself that this same fluff factor will make it harder to spot the inevitable mistakes!

**EDITED TO ADD I’ve just noticed that my keyboard is covered in suspiciously green yarn fluff. It hates me. It can read, or mind read, and it hates me. There is no hope. If noone hears from me for a few days, send in the search parties. Tell them to look under the mountain of pale green (with hints of peach) fluff.

Starting everything, finishing nothing!

I’ve been in a bit of a ‘starting fever’ recently, beginning several knitting projects without finishing any. I’m half way up one fairisle mitten. I’ve picked up a jumper for Handsome which I started months ago, and have done all but for the collar and the finishing off. I began a wrap with the yarn that Machelle gave me at Christmas. I looked at another wrap that I started, and a pair of fingerless gloves I wanted to make (but got no further with either of those!) and I started, and promptly frogged, a knitted toy for a friend.

I’m going to have a go at finishing Handsome’s jumper now, and then maybe I’ll do a bit more on the wrap. And maybe, if you’re very lucky, I’ll get round to taking some pictures of the WIPs tomorrow!

I hope you all have a lovely and relaxing weekend, doing whatever it is that you enjoy doing the most.

More progress

So, those WIPs are starting to feel a little more finishable now. The end is definitely in sight for my dishcloths and kitchen towel – just edging the latter this evening – and I’m hoping to have photos to show you by the end of the week.

In other news, GG came home early again today and went straight to bed – his convalescence is obviously taking longer than we both thought. However, seeing their Daddy feeling unwell spurred both boys into being uber-helpful, with Handsome tackling the washing up while Cheeky peeled carrots and parsnips and made vegetable soup for his ailing parent (both of them thoroughly supervised, of course!), which went down very well.

I can’t wait for our few days away, which is coming up soon now. I think that the change of scenery and country air will be just what GG needs to get completely back to his former energetic self!

Oh, and apparently, I’m a daisy;

I am a Daisy What Flower Are You?

Works in progress

I seem to have quite a few works in progress at the moment, and I’m dying to do about twenty other things as well (I’m a Gemini, and have the typical Gemini characteristics of flitting like a butterfly from one project to the other!). In an effort to try to check myself, I decided to share all of my current WIPs with you, as well as my target of finishing them all by the end of the month.

Well, all except this one! This is the current mound of squares that I have accrued towards my winter afghan project, and I’ve no intention of trying to finish it by the end of April, but it still counts as a WIP so it deserved a photo! I have a vision of myself piecing this all together when the evenings get chilly again in the autumn, so that the ever increasing blanket keeps my knees warm as I work!

This is a small project that I hope to finish this evening. I’m making a dishcloth (or maybe two – I’ll see how fast it comes together) to include with my Down–To–Earth swap parcel which is due to be posted before the end of the month. Along with the dishcloth, will be this;

It’s not a great picture, but it’s a section of the kitchen towel which will be part of my swap. I’ve got to edge it with coloured cotton to finish it, so not too much work left, once I decide what stitch I want to use.

While it’s not quite a work in progress yet, not having been started, I have it in my head to start this over the Easter weekend, so it will definitely count by next week! I bought it on Ebay recently, and plan to use it to make an Owls sweater, as shown here (you need to scroll down the page to see the Owls design).

Next, is this pair of slipper socks that I have been crocheting to be kept at my mother in law’s house. No-one wears shoes in her house, but her conservatory (where we spend a lot of time) has laminate floor so my feet are usually freezing cold. They’re nearly finished, apart from making the leg parts a little longer, but I’d like to embellish them a little.

Does anyone remember me asking you to guess the strange item in the picture a few weeks ago? Well, this was what it was leading to. It was a ball of recycled yarn, made from cutting t-shirts into long strips. I was sorting through my t-shirts and discovered that I’ve got about eight charity t-shirts (mainly from the half-dozen ‘Races For Life’ that I’ve done), all of which were a little the worse for wear and taking up space in my drawers that could definitely be put to better use! So I decided to make myself a mat for my bathroom floor. I like to have a good solid chunky mat underfoot when I get out of the bath, and this will definitely suit! As far as I’ve gone so far took up two whole t-shirts, and I’ve got three more wanting a good home. I’m hoping that will be enough, otherwise I’m attacking GG’s drawers too!

Last but not least, is this;

It is the beginnings of a bag to take on holiday with me when we go abroad later in the year. The solid rectangle is the base (or nearly is the base – I need to enlarge it a little more), the pink ex-shirt will be the lining, and the granny squares are the start of the couple of dozen that I’ll need for the body of the bag. When I saw this yarn in my mother in law’s stash I loved it’s bright colours on sight and so when she passed her stash onto my mother, and my mother had no use for it, I had it! It’s really soft as well, so lovely to work with. I look forward to seeing what I manage to make from it!

So, that is it. My list of WIPs. All of which (plus two pot-holders for my swap) I want to have finished by the end of the month. I have confidence in me! I’ve got so much else that I want to do, I’m sure that if I concentrate on these I’ll have no problem finishing them. Expect many photos of completed articles in due course!

An ex-WIP!

I don’t think I’m alone in having a mini-celebration in my head every time I finish a craft project – there’s something so satisfying about producing something entirely under your own steam, whether it’s a drawing, something from yarn, some foodie item that you’ve taken extra time and care over or one of the countless other forms of crafting.

For all you non-‘yarnies’ out there, WIP stands for Work In Progress. I’ve lost count of the number of WIPs I have lying around my house, and I hope to reduce that number this year.

Before Christmas, I started scarves for two of my friends. I obviously didn’t leave enough time to complete them though, given that I finished the last stitches on Thursday evening. I gave the scarf pictured below to my friend Maria yesterday evening, and she seemed very happy with it!

She loves wearing scarves, and so when I saw the pattern for this over at A little slice of life I couldn’t resist. I love the lacy stitching, and the lightness of the finished scarf. I could picture Maria wearing it on a warmish Spring day. I hope to get a picture of her wearing it later on.

As I said, I love the stich combination used in this scarf. It’s very simple to make but very effective, and I have plans (when I’ve cleared some of my WIP backlog a little!) to make myself a summer top using this stitch. More on that at a later date though!

Plarn!

My latest craft project – what do you think?

This is a small bag which I made yesterday from plarn – do you know what that is? I only heard the term yesterday, and it’s a new word which I’m hoping will take off and become widespread. It is yarn created by artfully cutting up plastic grocery bags into long strips. I’ve then adapted a pattern I found at www.sugarncream.com to make it a fair bit smaller and also circular as opposed to the more traditional grocery bag shape. It didn’t take that long to make the actual bag, it was the cutting of the plastic bags which took the time. I think this bag used about four carrier bags (from Sainsburys, in case you don’t recognise the distinctive orange colour!) and as you can see, is able to hold six apples and two lemons. My idea in making this small bag was to create something that people could use to carry small purchases. Some of my friends and I are hoping to have a cake stall at a local fete soon to raise money for Cancer Research UK Relay For Life Cardiff, and I thought that maybe people could be persuaded to buy these to carry their cakes home in! I wouldn’t charge very much, but every little bit of fundraising helps, and I have lots of carrier bags which I could recycle in this way. I’m also working on a full sized grocery bag made from plarn, but more on that in a later post.

Another project of mine in the offing is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, but I was kickstarted into action by Firefly (again, she has a lot to answer for!) and her 1bag campaign. You can sign up for that here. It appears that in America there isn’t yet the movement towards reusing carrier bags and having reusable bags full stop that we have here in the UK (tell me if I’m wrong!). Many of our supermarkets now offer rewards if you take bags with you to the shop rather than having new ones each time. Anyway, she is promoting the fact that using just one reusable bag a week would save 52 bags a year, and asks us to imagine how many bags could be saved if all of us took part in this. So, I’ve dug out some dishcloth cotton yarn I had in my cupboard and have started my very own 1bag. It’s still a WIP (work in progress) but here’s the base just before I started working on the sides. More photos to follow as it grows…

It is made, as I said, from cotton yarn in dk weight, using a size 9 or 3.5mm crochet hook. The pattern is the one I mentioned previously which I found at www.sugarncream.com. Looking at this photo, I think I did a couple more rounds before I started on the sides. I love crocheting. I find it a very relaxing craft, and satisfying because it comes together so quickly.