Shopping from my stash!

I suppose I should be embarrassed to confess that my latest yarn temptation didn't stop at those gorgeous Stylecraft Dream Catcher yarns ~ I should be, but I'm afraid that I'm not in the least 😄 

Whilst I didn't actually purchase more yarn, I have found myself with more to add to my stash.....'cos I've re-subscribed to Simply Crochet magazine which came with this yummy Stylecraft yarn bundle 😏

As I've mentioned many times before I tend to use Stylecraft Special DK for my blankets, and will most likely continue to do so as it's such good value, washes well and comes in a huge variety of colours.  I have to say, though, that both the Bellisima and Bambino in this bundle are wonderfully soft, and despite there being a much more limited choice of colours for both, a blanket or garment made with either would be lovely.  They are both more expensive than the Special DK, £2.99 against £2.19 for a 100g ball.  They also don't contain so many metres: 268 against 295.

I am looking forward to using these yarns simply because they are so soft and cosy.  They also came with a blanket pattern but I don't care for it to be honest.  I'm sure I'll be able to find something suitable, though, in my stash of patterns and books!

So, of course, I've had to make some space in my rather full-to-capacity stash store so out came the bag of single balls of yarn.  I'm not too sure, actually, why I have quite so many of these single balls; a fair few of them haven't even been started, so they can't be left over from any previous projects.

Anyhoo, I've had it in mind for quite some time to make a blanket each for Beverly's best friend Kat's two children.  The finished blanket in the photo above, for Arthur, is from Jane Brocket's book The Gentle Art of Knitting.  It's one of my favourite chevron-stripe patterns and I have made a number of blankets using it over the years, with various colour combinations.  They always seems to turn out nicely, and once the foundation rows are in place it's a simple pattern to follow.  The yarns are a combination of Stylecraft Special DK and Scheepjes Colour Crafter.  I also had about 300g of King Cole Pricewise DK in Pewter, so decided to use that to alternate with all the different colours.  Unfortunately I didn't have quite enough of the King Cole but luckily had some Stylecraft Special DK in Silver, which was a close-enough colour to not be too noticeable with it being separated by the other colours!

I'm now working on a blanket for Ellie ~
 hopefully it won't take me too long to finish it so watch this space for the end result😊