Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)        

Little words of wisdom

 

Eight down.....124 to go!

As I mentioned in my post last week, in the end I decided to use only nine different colours for the guest bedroom blanket squares: eight spread out over the six rounds of the squares, with the ninth used as the last round of each one.  I chose to go down the route of making the final round in each square the same colour (parchment) as I wanted a more cohesive look to the blanket, rather than a totally eclectic patchwork effect.   

Rather than randomly mixing the colours, I also chose to use them in the same order throughout: duck egg, pale rose, meadow, cream, raspberry, stone, pistachio and camel.  I'm not working exclusively on the blanket so it will take some time to complete, but it's a nice easy little "production line" exercise to work on whilst watching TV in the evening.  I'm using one colour at a time, to produce six squares at various stages of completion.  I'm aware that it must be an illusion, but it really does seem as if the squares are completed more quickly this way than if I were to make all seven rounds of each individual square before moving on to the next one! 

 And here are the first eight completed squares, using all the colours in sequence.  As I'm using the colours in a set order I think I will end up making 16 identical squares from each of the eight colours, plus an extra four to bring the total to 132 (11 squares wide by 12 squares long).  Of course, since my maths is pretty rubbish I could well be wrong in my calculations here, so I'll just keep going until I have the total number of squares I need 😉  

Peace...

 

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)       

Oh look, I changed my mind again!

I have mentioned a couple of times that I had started crocheting a blanket for the guest bedroom but was getting distracted by other things to make.  Well, even though I had made a good start, I came to the conclusion that actually I wasn't keen on how said blanket was turning out.  I had decided to follow Lucy's (Attic 24) Cosy Stripe Blanket pattern and headed over to Wool Warehouse, my favourite online yarn store, to immerse myself in all their yarny goodies.  Even though I was pretty sure I'd end up with Stylecraft Special DK, my favourite go-to yarn for blankets, there's no harm in having a look at all the other yummy stuff available, eh 😉

Lucy's pattern calls for 15 different colours and I'm quite partial to a strongly multi-coloured design as the above stash-busting chevron blanket shows, but I wanted softer colours for the guest bedroom..... 

....so these are the shades I selected: raspberry, pistachio, duck egg, camel, apricot, violet, cloud blue, cream, wisteria, silver, pale rose, meadow, stone, spring green and parchment.

I duly set to and started working on the blanket but by the time I'd completed 7 or 8 rows, it was starting to dawn on me that I really wasn't happy with either my choice of pattern or the number of different colours.  I think what I wasn't keen on were the rows of plain trebles between the granny stitch rows, so with the benefit of hindsight perhaps Lucy's straightforward Granny Stripe Blanket might have been a better choice.

In the end, though, I decided to make the blanket using basic granny squares ~ something I haven't done in a very long time.  I suspect that, like me, this is most folks first introduction to crochet.  I was taught by my paternal Grandma when I was a child, during one of our annual summer holidays at her house, and appropriately enough the granny square was the first thing she taught me 😊

The only "problem" with granny squares is that when you are designing off-the-cuff there is a little bit of mathematics involved in deciding how many will be needed ~ so thank goodness for calculators as maths definitely isn't one of my strong points 😉

The photo above is my test square, which came out at about 12.5cm, using the Stylecraft yarn and a 4.5mm hook.  The blanket only needs to be large enough to lay over the top of the duvet if our guests need a little extra warmth, so I am planning to make it 11 squares wide by 12 squares long.  This should come out at approximately 137.5cm wide by 150cm long; I will then add a border all around the blanket, most likely to about the same depth as the size of an individual square.  So in theory I should end up with a blanket approximately 162.5cm wide by 175cm long, which should be fine for the double (4'6") bed in the room.  

 I also decided to just use 9 different colours in the blanket: duck egg, pale rose, meadow, cream, raspberry, stone, pistachio, camel and parchment. Every square will have six different colours, with the final round of each one in parchment.  I will also be using parchment for joining the squares at the end, and for the border.  I'll use the leftover colours in due course as I have a number of blankets that I'd like to make as gifts. 

Then I had to decide how to mix up the colours in the squares, i.e. whether to go totally random or somewhat more organised.  In the end I chose the "more organised" route and once I've got a nice little pile of squares done, I'll show you what I mean!

Little words of wisdom

 

Veggie February.....

.....didn't happen.  Well, to be more accurate, it did for the first week but then I let it fizzle out.  I think it was very much to do with the fact that I was relying on ready-made vegetarian dishes rather than scratch-cooking.  I had my gall-bladder removed a number of years ago and get some pain if I eat too much fat, so although I didn't think to look at the ingredients list of the things I bought, I rather suspect that most had a higher fat content than I would usually be consuming with my normal omnivorous way of eating.  I was starting to feel uncomfortable and in a certain amount of low-level pain, so went back to my normal diet.

Funnily enough, I have in the past found it easier (and more comfortable digestion-wise) to follow a vegan rather than simply vegetarian diet.  I guess I eat much more cheese and processed food on a vegetarian eating plan than I do on either a vegan or omnivorous diet.  Of course, it's much easier these days to find ready-made vegan meals than it was when I was following a vegan diet a few years ago.  Back then I had to make most of my meals from scratch and I'll admit that although I felt healthier for those two years than I had done for most of my adult life, I found it hard to be the only vegan in the family so gradually slipped back to my omnivorous diet!

The interesting thing, though, is that Adrian (a proper meat-and-two-veg ~ with potatoes counting as one of the two veggies 😉 ~ man) has suggested we try to have a couple of vegetarian meals each week ~ totally amazing!  So for now, at least, I'm back to my omnivorous diet ~ with plans to spend some delightful hours reading through my small library of cookery books for yummy made-from-scratch vegetarian meals we will both love 😊

Peace...

 

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)       

Little words of wisdom

 

Peace...

 

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)       

Little words of wisdom

 

Same yarn, different effect

Although I hadn't touched a pair of knitting needles for a good many years, I thought I'd see if I could remember enough to make another dishcloth using the King Cole Bamboo Cotton yarn I had left from the crochet version 😄 

I confess that I was a tad disappointed with all three of the dishcloths I crocheted with this variegated yarn.  The variegation seemed to come out looking rather "blocky", if you see what I mean 😕  Perhaps it would have looked better if it had been spread over a larger item.

 As I say, it's been a very long time since I knitted anything and I've only ever made very simple things ~ mind you, the things I crochet aren't exactly complicated either 😉  The dishcloth came out a little bit wonky and I managed to gain a stitch somehow or other, but I guess it isn't too bad as I made it more or less as a beginner knitter.  

I'm thinking that perhaps I'll make a couple more dishcloths using up the two other leftover variegated yarns.  It'll be interesting to see if my knitting gets any neater with a little more practice!

A Make-a-Month 2022: January

Stripy dishcloths

A winter outfit

Pretty dishcloths