Stash-busting and gifts

I finally made a tissue-box cover for myself!  The pattern is a little different to the previous ones I made for Beverly and I like this incarnation better to be honest.  I had to try a number of times to get the pattern right ~ I certainly couldn't create crochet patterns for a living, it would disintegrate my poor brain 😉  Still, I'm pleased with how this has turned out and if I'm feeling brave, I'll share the pattern with you when I make the next cover.  This one is now on my bedside cabinet and looks so much nicer than a naked box.  I want to make a couple more, one for the living room and one for the tissue box that lives beside the computer ~ oh yes, I have boxes of tissues all over the house...and my craft room...and the garden shed, too 😄

This is the other cover that Beverly wanted, made using the original two patterns that I "married together".  I wasn't too sure about the colours when Beverly picked them out, but now that the cover has been made I think that they sit together very nicely.

I've put making our sofa blanket to one side for the time being and have started on a different one that I'm hoping to have done in good time to be a Christmas gift for a friend.  I had actually gone to rummage through my stash for a completely different reason when I came across these humungous 400g balls of yarn.  I've got two each of Bramble (which I'm not using in this blanket; it's the colour of blackberries ~ surprise, surprise!), Fisher (the blue yarn) and Beach Storm.  I must have had these for quite some time.  When I went on the Wool Warehouse site, where I buy most of my yarn, to double-check the shades they didn't actually have either Bramble or Beach Storm listed, and Fisher is out of stock.  I suspect that I will find this to be the case with rather a lot of my yarn stash!  Anyhoo, this is crocheting up very nicely and will, I hope, end up being a pretty blanket.  It's the same Jane Brocket pattern I used for Beverly's blanket, this time of course simply using two different colours.  As I've said previously the pattern works well with any number of colours really, and could even be made using just a single shade to make a solid-colour blanket.  A few years ago I made a blanket for Beverly's friend using lots of different colours, with black between each one.  It turned out to be one of my favourite colour combinations using this pattern.

Of course, the yarn I was originally hoping to find just doesn't exist in my stash, namely some different shades of green.  It's a funny thing but I have barely any green at all, so when I do come to make this project I will have to actually buy some yarn ~ shock, horror 😲  Still, I have a few months yet before I really need to make a start on it so in the meantime, methinks I'd best get on with other things that I do have appropriate yarn for 😉